United States President Donald Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy said a deal to end the Ukraine war was “really close” and now depended on resolving two main outstanding issues: The future of Ukraine’s Donbas region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is due to step down in January, told the Reagan National Defense Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict were in “the last 10 metres” which he said was always the hardest.
The two main outstanding issues, Kellogg said, were on territory - primarily the future of the Donbas - and the future of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which is under Russian control.
“If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well,” Kellogg said on Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. “We’re almost there.”
“We’re really, really close,” said Kellogg.
