US can ramp up sanctions on Putin, Trump’s Ukraine-Russia envoy says

Donald Trump is ready to double down on sanctions against Russia to bring about an end to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the U.S. president’s special envoy on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Sanctions enforcement on Russian President Vladimir Putin is “only about a three” on a scale of one to 10 on how painful the economic pressure can be, Keith Kellogg said in an interview with New York Post. “You could really increase the sanctions — especially the latest sanctions,” which target oil production and exports.

Trump’s approach is more pragmatic than former President Joe Biden’s “bumper sticker” policy of claiming to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” without using all the instruments of pressure, said Kellogg, who recently met Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, for the first time in his official role.

“The pressure just can’t be military. You have to put economic pressure, you have to put diplomatic pressure,” he told the Post.

“And if there’s anybody who understands leverage, it’s President Donald J. Trump,” Kellogg said in the interview.  

In the end, both Kyiv and Moscow will have to give up something to end the “industrial-size” killing in the Ukraine conflict, Kellogg told the newspaper. “Very frankly, both sides in any negotiation have to give; that’s just the way it is in negotiations,” he said.

Kellogg denied a media report that he would present a peace plan during next week’s Munich Security Conference. In a post on X, Kellogg confirmed that he would attend the MSC gathering, which runs Feb. 14-16.

Ukrainian officials hope to have several official meetings with Kellogg and U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Trump’s team has been working hard on ending the Russian war against Ukraine, Kellogg said in the interview.

Yet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Trump still has no official plan for how to stop the conflict. “Our teams will be working together. Because there can’t be a separate plan, created without us,” Zelenskyy said on Thursday.