Trump’s special envoy warns Ukraine’s ‘bold attack’ on Russian air bases raises risk of escalation
Keith Kellogg, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in a June 3 interview with Fox News that Ukraine had carried out a “very bold attack” on Russian military airfields — but cautioned that the move significantly increases the risk of escalation.
“The risk levels are going way up,” he said. “What happened this weekend — 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, their nuclear triad, that your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side is going to do, you’re not sure. And that’s what they actually did.”
“When you do that,” he continued, “it’s very clear the risk levels would go up. And I think that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”
Kellogg added that the Ukrainian operation showed the country “is not lying down on this” and that it could raise the risk level to something “unacceptable” for Russia.
On June 1, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) launched an operation code-named Spiderweb, targeting four Russian military airfields. More than 100 drones were launched from trucks positioned near the bases. According to video footage and satellite images, the drones destroyed between 10 and 13 aircraft at sites in Russia’s Irkutsk and Murmansk regions. The SBU and Ukraine’s General Staff later claimed that 41 Russian aircraft had been destroyed.
