(Reuters) – Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on Thursday he had discussed ways to achieve a just and lasting peace in the conflict with Russia in talks with U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg.
Kellogg’s visit to Kyiv comes at a difficult time in diplomatic terms for Ukraine after U.S. President Donald Trump effectively ended Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s political isolation, engaged in bilateral talks with Moscow, and has since echoed Russian lines regarding Ukraine.
“I affirmed Ukraine’s willingness to achieve peace through strength and our vision for the necessary steps,” Sybiha said on X.
He reiterated to Kellogg, who arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday and said he would “sit and listen” as part of his mission, that the security of Ukraine and the transatlantic “is indivisible”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy plans a meeting with Kellogg on Thursday. The envoy already met Ukraine’s army top commander, heads of intelligence and special services.
In the past two days, Trump said Ukraine “should never have started” the war, launched by Russia in 2022, called Zelenskiy a “dictator without elections” and spread false data about his political ratings.
Zelenskiy responded to accusations saying Trump was trapped in “disinformation bubble”, with falsehoods coming from Russia, but later in the day said he was counting on American pragmatism.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Angus MacSwan)
