Risk of Escalation With Russia ‘Going Way Up’ Due To Ukrainian Attacks: Kellogg

Authored by Kyle Anzalone via The Libertarian Institute,

President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Ukraine conflict said that recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian air bases have created a significant risk of escalation in the war.

“I’m telling you, the risk levels are going way up – I mean, what happened this weekend,” Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News.

“People have to understand in the national security space: when you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their triad, the nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side is going to do. You’re not sure,” Kellog explained.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, launched a major attack on Russian airbases thousands of miles from the front lines. Kiev claims to have disabled one third of Moscow’s fleet of strategic bombers.

Washington and Moscow each possess the ability to conduct nuclear attacks via bombers, submarines, and land-based ballistic missiles, known as the nuclear triad.

The White House claims that it was not informed of the attack by Kiev. However, the CIA is deeply tied to the SBU.

The SBU has conducted other provocative attacks in recent days, hitting Russian railways and bridges and reportedly killing seven civilians.

Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the attacks on Wednesday.

“I just finished speaking, by telephone, with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia. The call lasted approximately one hour and 15 minutes,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The below is a reaction from independent journalist and geopolitical commentator Michael Tracey:

- If no one in the US military/intel apparatus knew about the sweeping Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s nuclear triad that was supposedly being planned for 1.5 years, they’re catastrophically incompetent

- If elements of that apparatus did know and purposely kept it from Trump, then Trump is suffering from the same problems we were told dogged him in the first term, and were going to be solved in the second term

- That is, Trump is being subtly subverted by underlings with conflicting agendas

- As a compounding factor, it could be the case that Trump still lacks the attention, interest, and/or organizational capacity to ensure his chain-of-command funnels such information to the top

- It could alternatively be the case that high-level administration officials, up to and including Trump, did in fact know about the attack in advance. After all, it was only last week that Trump warned on Truth Social that “really bad things” may be in store for Russia…

- In that scenario, Trump and administration officials simply wish to retain plausible deniability for political/diplomatic reasons

- Without dispositive evidence for any of the possible scenarios, the scenario one thinks to be the most likely will inevitably align with their preconceived notions about Trump, Ukraine, and Russia

While waiting for confirmed details of drone strikes on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet and terrorist attacks on civilian passenger trains, remember…

… US media (NYT) already admitted the US runs Ukrainian intel, with US CIA bases established all across Ukraine training… pic.twitter.com/7YgFe1qfMR

— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) June 1, 2025

“We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides,” Trump stated. “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace. President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.”