US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll (L) participates in a ceremony honouring the Army's 250th Birthday at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, 14 June 2025. Photo: EPA / BONNIE CASH
US Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll flew to Abu Dhabi on Monday evening to meet with a Russian military delegation to discuss amendments to a peace plan for Ukraine, The Financial Times (FT) reported on Tuesday.
Driscoll, who spent several hours in discussion with representatives from Russia on Monday night, flew to Abu Dhabi to present the Russian delegation with the latest draft of a US-drafted peace plan that was reduced from 28 points to 19 points in Geneva on Sunday during consultations between officials from both the US and Ukraine, POLITICO reported.
The US-Russian talks are expected to continue on Tuesday, though it remains unclear who else is participating in the negotiations. According to the FT, Driscoll is also scheduled to meet with the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, while he’s in Abu Dhabi.
The revised peace plan is believed to have scrapped the controversial requirement that Ukraine cede the entirety of its eastern Donbas region to Russia, as well as other sensitive clauses involving Ukraine’s territory, POLITICO reported. Among the other clauses to be scrapped are the proposal to allocate $100 billion from frozen Russian assets to the reconstruction of Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.
Ukraine’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsya told the FT that the US was also likely to agree to scrap a requirement limiting the size of the Ukrainian army to 600,000 troops. In addition, he noted that the proposal for amnesty for war criminals had been changed — it will now take into account the complaints of victims.
The most sensitive issues in the plan would be settled in discussions between the leaders of the US and Ukraine, Kyslytsya stressed.
