Former US special envoy Keith Kellogg said on 11 March that a ceasefire in Ukraine is achievable "today" — but only if Vladimir Putin accepts that Russian territorial gains are over.
Speaking to NHK in an interview on the sidelines of Tokyo Conference 2026, organized by Japanese think tank Genron NPO, Kellogg said the obstacle to peace is not Kyiv. "It is Putin, not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who does not want a ceasefire," he said.
Kellogg, who served as special envoy for Ukraine through December and was involved in peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv, said the path forward is straightforward in principle: freeze the current front lines. What stands in the way, according to Kellogg, is Putin's continued demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine — a condition Kyiv refuses to accept.
On the state of the Russian war effort, Kellogg was blunt. Sanctions are "taking a bite" out of the Russian economy, he said, and Russia has "probably suffered 1.2 million to 1.4 million killed or wounded." He added that Putin is increasingly worried about his own historical legacy — specifically, that "he'll be another Nicholas II," a reference to the last Russian czar, who was shot dead following his abdication.
For a ceasefire to happen, Kellogg said, Putin will have to agree that "he's not going to gain any more land" — and beyond that, come to realize that "he's got nothing to gain."
