President Donald Trump's Russia-Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the Trump administration's decision to suspend military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine.
The United States has been Ukraine's largest provider of both military equipment and intelligence, but Trump decided to suspend both following his dispute with Zelensky in the Oval Office last week. Officials have said since then that the pause could be lifted if conditions are met.
"Very candidly, they brought it on themselves," Kellogg said during a Council on Foreign Relations event on Thursday.
He and more than a dozen senators met with Zelensky the day of but prior to his White House visit, during which they ran through the day with him, such as "stage management."
"This is what you want to say. It's basically going to come in. We have a precious metals deal. You're going to sign the deal. You're going to have lunch, have a press conference, exit stage right, and you're good to go," Kellogg added. "What happened is President Zelensky, he misread the room last Friday, and I think he misread what I was telling him when I was in Kyiv as well."
Things became heated toward the end of the 40-minute public meeting between Trump, Zelensky, and Vice President JD Vance, which resulted in the White House throwing Zelensky out before he and Trump could finalize the long-term agreement that Zelensky traveled to Washington to sign.
"You don't negotiate peace discussions in public. You don't try to challenge the president of the United States in the Oval Office, that in fact, you need to side with me and not the Russians," he added. "What happened was two nation-state leaders coming into a meeting with objectives that were clearly not in alignment with one another, and there was a disconnect publicly between the goals of the two administrations."
Zelensky called the turn of events "regrettable" and said he's willing to finalize the agreement. There have been talks that senior diplomats could meet in Saudi Arabia next week.
Trump's decision to pause military aid and intelligence sharing was meant to send a message to the Ukrainians.
"We're serious about this, and you need to understand we're serious about this. And this is one of the ways we made sure they understood," he said. "And I think as a result of that, they realized we're serious, and they need to get serious about it as well."
Trump and his administration have made clear that their intent is to end the war, a stark difference from the Biden administration, which provided tens of billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine and said publicly that it intended to continue doing so.
"President Trump has been clear that the United States primary objective in this war is to stop the killing and get both sides to the table and implement an enduring peace structure," Kellogg added.
Several administration officials, or hopefuls, have tread very carefully around questions of who is responsible for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea and then sought to overthrow the Zelensky government when the military invaded in February 2022.
Zelensky "approached this engagement with President Trump as an effort to get the United States to co-sign on the U.S. to continually funding Ukraine, to give Ukraine an advantage over Russia," Kellogg continued. "President Zelensky clearly wanted President Trump to side publicly with [Ukraine], with the United States against Russia. It would have negated an objective interlocutor."
The new U.S. position has put the Trump administration seemingly at odds with many European countries, which agreed with and worked alongside the previous administration in aiding Ukraine's defense.
The difference between the current and former administrations is also evident in their approach to Russia and Putin.
'YOU STAYED WITH US': ZELENSKY THANKS EUROPEAN LEADERS FOR CONTINUED SUPPORT
The Biden administration worked with the country's European allies to isolate Moscow on the global level and largely avoided communications with it. Comparatively, officials in the Trump administration have met twice with senior Russian diplomats about the war in their first month in power.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who participated in that first meeting, suggested afterward that there could be "incredible opportunities" for the U.S. and Russia if they agree to end the war in a way that is "acceptable" to the administration.