Kurt Volker, Trump’s Envoy for Ukraine, Resigns – The New York Times

Mr. Volker, a former career foreign service officer who represented President George W. Bush at NATO and now serves as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University based in Washington, spent much of the year trying to bring Mr. Trump together with Mr. Zelensky to bolster the government elected earlier this year.

He argued to Trump administration officials that Mr. Zelensky was a credible reformer and serious figure who could be his country’s last chance to get its act together in the face of Russian aggression. With Mr. Trump openly expressing his disdain for Ukrainians — convinced that they were all corrupt and tried to take him down in 2016 — it was an uphill task.

After the Ukrainian inauguration, Mr. Trump agreed to meet with Mr. Zelensky but his staff kept delaying putting a date on the calendar. Like other officials, Mr. Volker was surprised to learn that Mr. Trump had ordered $391 million in aid to Ukraine frozen.

But he kept working to bring the two presidents together. Finally, the White House agreed to schedule a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky during the American president’s visit to Warsaw, only to scratch the meeting when Mr. Trump decided to stay home to monitor a hurricane.

Instead, Vice President Mike Pence, whose trip to Mr. Zelensky’s inauguration had been canceled to increase leverage on the Ukrainian government, according to the whistle-blower complaint, was sent to meet with Mr. Zelensky in Warsaw in his place.

Mr. Volker’s departure, which was first reported by the State Press, the student newspaper at Arizona State University, leaves the Trump administration with few senior officials versed in Ukraine’s struggles with Russia.

In recent months, the administration has lost John R. Bolton, the national security adviser; Fiona Hill, the top Europe official on the National Security Council staff; and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, all of whom sympathized with Ukraine in its struggle with Russia.

Moreover, the United States Embassy in Kiev is still without an ambassador after the administration yanked home Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was targeted by the president and Mr. Giuliani for obstensibly being insufficiently loyal, a charge heatedly disputed by her colleagues.