Retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who served as President Trump's special envoy to Ukraine until December 2025, said that if he were advising Vladimir Putin, he would tell him to "just declare victory and go home." Kellogg argued that Putin has driven himself into a strategic trap where he cannot advance militarily but cannot afford to admit failure.
In an interview with PBS NewsHour's Compass Points program, as reported by "Hvylya", Kellogg laid out what he sees as Putin's fundamental dilemma after four years of full-scale war. The full text of the interview is available on Hvylya.
"He is not winning," Kellogg stated bluntly. He pointed out that Russia has never crossed the Dnieper River, failed to take Kyiv, and inadvertently pushed Finland and Sweden into NATO. The former envoy compared Putin's situation to a historical trap: "He has got to get a victory. If I don't get a victory, somebody is going to probably try to eliminate me."
Kellogg said Putin's frontline units have been "mauled" after four years and lack the capacity to continue offensive operations beyond their current positions. Russian military bloggers have begun openly questioning the strategy, he noted. The former general drew a parallel with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, where losses of 18,000 troops proved unsustainable - while Putin has now suffered between 1.2 and 1.4 million casualties, dead and wounded.
When asked whether Putin would accept such an outcome, Kellogg acknowledged the Russian president likely harbors ambitions beyond current lines. "If you are willing to accept the fact that he is a Jeffersonian Democrat and that this is as far as he is going to go, okay. But history has shown that in real politics, he has probably got a desire to conquer, or at least get to Kyiv," Kellogg said. He added that the remaining fortified cities in Donetsk province represent the last defensible terrain before Kharkiv - and then the road to Kyiv.
Kellogg said the United States should deliver Putin an ultimatum: "Take it or go home." He expressed uncertainty about whether such an ultimatum had actually been made, adding that European allies are increasingly taking the lead - and warning that within a year, "they are going to go without us." He also noted that Russia has shown a pattern of stringing along negotiations rather than pursuing genuine peace.
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