“Zelensky is a tough nut to crack. I mean, he's one son of a bitch. And when I go there [в Украину] traveled, I remember once saying to President Trump: sir, he’s a lot like you,” Kellogg said. – He's stubborn. He has his own opinion. He's not afraid to express it. He knows how to use the media.”
Kellogg added that he made one comment for which he was criticized.
“I said he is a courageous leader. And I told people in the administration: We in the United States have not seen such a leader since the days of Abraham Lincoln. And what I mean is this: no one has had to fight an existential struggle on his own soil like he has – with the survival of a nation on the line like he has. And we have to accept that. We have to understand where he's coming from. He's defending Ukraine, and whether we like it or not, what he does or says is a fact,” he said. Trump's former special envoy.
Kellogg confirmed that this comment about Zelensky infuriated Trump.
“He didn’t agree with that,” Kellogg pointed out.
He added that he and Trump had no harsh exchanges over Zelensky.
“I'll be honest: I like President Trump, I like the way he acts and the way he talks, but I also understand that he can get angry sometimes,” Kellogg said.
Context
Last November, Reuters wrote that Kellogg plans to leave the post of Trump's special envoy for Ukraine in January 2026. The agency notes that his departure will be the loss of one of the key defenders of Ukraine within the Trump administration. Kellogg is leaving due to the excessive number of officials working on the Ukraine issue and the lack of recognition that it is the aggressor country Russia that is delaying peace negotiations, the media emphasized.
