Trump's envoy for Ukraine to meet with Lukashenko

(Patria) - High-ranking Trump administration official Keith Kellogg plans to travel to Belarus in the coming days to meet with the country's president, according to four sources familiar with the matter, while ceasefire negotiations between Ukraine and Russia remain stalled, Reuters reported.

If the official, envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, meets with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, he would be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the authoritarian country in recent years.

The precise agenda of the meeting is unclear, although Kellogg has privately presented the trip as a step that could help kick-start peace talks to end Russia's war against Ukraine, two sources said, who asked to remain anonymous because the trip has not been announced.

The State Department and the Belarusian embassy in Washington declined to comment. Kellogg and the White House did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Planning such trips requires careful negotiation and it is possible that the trip could be canceled or altered at the last minute.

During Trump's first term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Belarus in 2020, which was then the highest U.S. visit to the Eastern European country in more than twenty years. The trip was part of a campaign under the first Trump administration to improve relations with Belarus at a time when relations between Minsk and Moscow were at a low point.

Trump's successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, changed course after the 2020 Belarusian elections, which were condemned by international observers as neither free nor fair.

Mass street protests followed the elections and were met with a brutal crackdown, and
Belarus has been largely avoided by Western countries. The U.S. suspended operations at its embassy in 2022, when it became clear to Washington that Minsk would support Russia in the invasion of Ukraine.

However, during Trump's second term, the administration renewed its efforts to establish a working relationship with Belarus.

A U.S. official told Reuters that the Trump administration had internally discussed ways to pull Minsk out of Moscow's sphere of influence and bring it closer to Washington, even if only marginally.

In February, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Smith and two other State Department officials traveled to Belarus to find three political prisoners, The New York Times reported at the time. Smith privately described the trip as the first step of a potential deal that would release numerous political prisoners in exchange for easing U.S. sanctions, the Times reported.

A senior U.S. official pointed to Minsk's release of Youras Ziankovich, a forty-seven-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, on April 30, as a sign that Lukashenko wants to improve relations with Washington.

But, Western diplomats expressed skepticism about U.S. efforts to win over
Belarus, which remains firmly linked and has deep economic ties with neighboring Russia.