Trump's entourage is split over the Ukrainian conflict — NBC

Donald Trump's administration is split over how to resolve the Ukrainian conflict. It is reported by NBC News, citing sources.

National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg want to use American leverage to push Russian President Vladimir Putin to resign, former American and Ukrainian officials and a source close to the Kiev government have said.

"Others are in favor of reducing the billions of dollars in aid that the United States provided to Ukraine under the Biden administration in order to achieve an early end to the conflict. Critics of this approach say that this will actually disarm Ukraine and, thus, will be tantamount to capitulation to Russia," the TV channel reports.

It is noted that, while still a senator, the current vice President J.D. Vance was a fierce opponent of the allocation of funds to Ukraine.

"Why spend $130 billion on Ukraine when we can't even pay our own bills at home?" — said Vance in one of the speeches. He called the government of Ukraine "the most corrupt" in Europe and, possibly, in the world. On Tuesday, a representative of Vance declined to comment on his position on US assistance to Ukraine, NBC notes.

In turn, Keith Kellogg told the TV channel that "the presidential national security team is synchronized."

"The president will use, as necessary, all the levers of American power to put an end to the carnage of the last three years," he added.

Earlier, Trump outlined several ideas for helping Ukraine while the war continues. In a social media post two days after being sworn in, he warned that he would impose tariffs, sanctions and taxes on the sale of Russian goods to the United States and other countries if Putin did not negotiate an end to the conflict. The problem in this case is that the US trade turnover with Russia has sharply reduced, which makes tariffs ineffective, the TV channel notes.

"This is a complete distraction. We have completely disconnected the US economy from the Russian one. So our ability to hurt Russia with tariffs is negligible," a former Biden administration national security official said of Trump's tariff threat.

Another option for Trump is to use Russia's frozen assets, rather than American taxpayer dollars, to continue financing Ukraine.

Former US Ambassador to William Taylor said in Kiev that $300 billion of Russian reserves held in European and American banks "will be of great importance for providing weapons and financial support to Ukraine."

"What Trump can do is put pressure on the Europeans to seize these reserves and transfer them to an account for Ukrainians, and also allow Ukrainians to use this money to buy weapons from the United States and continue working with their government. President Trump knows that the Russian economy is fragile and vulnerable to further sanctions. And thus, he knows that he has leverage over Putin," Taylor said in an interview with the TV channel.

"It should be noted that the idea of "Putin's resignation" has never been heard from the Trump team. At the same time, Kellogg himself recently called for new elections in Ukraine, not in Russia. Therefore, it is unclear whether the information about the desire of Kellogg and Waltz to remove Putin is valid, or it is a stuffing to further complicate the negotiation process between Washington and Moscow," the Ukrainian edition of Strana writes meanwhile.