President Volodymyr Zelensky met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, on Sept. 11 during the U.S. official’s previously unannounced visit to Kyiv.
According to a readout provided by Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Zelensky and Kellogg discussed providing Kyiv with additional weaponry as well implementing additional economic pressure on Russia during the meeting.
“The parties discussed expanding the PURL initiative to finance the production and procurement of Patriot systems, as well as bilateral agreements on drones and weapons that Ukraine has proposed to the United States,” the readout read. “Ukraine is counting on a positive response from the American side.”
The statement refers to an agreement reached between the U.S., Ukraine, and NATO on July 14 allowing European countries to purchase American arms, including Patriots, for Ukraine. The support comes through NATO’s Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, which coordinates funding for Kyiv’s most urgent battlefield needs.
Zelensky in July also floated the a potential agreement involving the purchase of American weapons in exchange for the sale of Ukrainian drones, worth approximately $50 billion. While no deal has been formalized, Zelensky has said the arrangement would see the U.S. and Ukraine back each other in aviation and unmanned systems development.
During the meeting, Zelensky and Kellogg also discussed the need to work “with partners to strengthen tariff and sanctions pressure on Russia, so that the opportunity to meet at the leaders’ level and end the war can come as soon as possible.”
The formal outcomes of the discussions were not clear immediately clear.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has thus far repeatedly refused meeting with Zelensky, the prospects of which were brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump. The Presidential Office said that Zelensky told Kellogg “that a trilateral format of negotiations at the leaders’ level is the most effective.”
Despite the lack of progress following Trump’s Alaska summit with Putin, the U.S. president has repeatedly postponed implementing secondary sanctions on Russian oil — while urging the European Union to ramp up its own pressure.
Kellogg’s visit to Kyiv comes as tensions in the region continue to escalate after Poland confirmed downing Russian drones in its airspace during an aerial strike on Ukraine. The incident marked the first time a NATO country engaged Moscow’s military assets over its territory during the full-scale war.
Kellogg previously visited Kyiv on Aug. 24 on the occasion of Ukraine’s 34th Independence Day. The retired general is one of Trump’s top aides in the effort to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine and has been in close contact with top Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine, which has resisted Russia’s all-out war for three and a half years and faces near-daily drone attacks, urged a strong response to the incursion from NATO and the EU.
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European countries are scrambling for Ukrainian anti-drone systems following the unprecedented violation of Polish airspace by Russian kamikaze drones on Sept. 10, officials and manufacturers have told the Kyiv Independent. “We were already previously discussing with the Ukrainian side investments in interceptor drones, but now we are even more interested in them,” a European military diplomat told the Kyiv Independent, on condition of anonymity. “We need to be prepared for war, so it is high
