Wednesday, November 26, 2025 - The Trump administration has been quietly hammering out a new peace plan with Russia to end its war with Ukraine, according to a new report by CNN.
The president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who has been at
the center of the administration’s talks with Moscow, has been leading the
effort, the report said. The negotiations accelerated this week as the
administration feels the Kremlin has signaled a renewed openness to a deal, the
report added citing a source.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and a top-level Pentagon
delegation arrived on Wednesday morning in Ukraine “on a fact-finding mission
to meet with Ukrainian officials and discuss efforts to end the war,” Army
Spokesperson Col. Dave Butler said in a statement.
The mission, at the direction of the president, was part of
the White House effort to resuscitate peace talks, according to a separate
source who is a US official. Driscoll was set to discuss battlefield conditions
and weapons needs with President Volodymyr Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian
officials, as well as the nascent peace efforts, the official said.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the US delegation
traveling to Kyiv.
Driscoll has not been publicly involved in the last rounds of
peace talks, but he is a close ally of Vice President JD Vance. Other officials
traveling with Driscoll to Kyiv were Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George;
Gen. Chris Donahue, the top US Army commander in Europe; and Sergeant Major of
the Army Michael Weimer.
Russian sources also confirmed to CNN that there are ongoing
high-level contacts between US and Russian officials, including Witkoff.
Russian Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev went to the US in October to meet Witkoff
and others and had what a Russian source told CNN were “very productive
discussions.”
According to an Axios report, the current draft being hashed
out between Washington and Moscow is focused on 28 points, including security
guarantees for Ukraine and Europe, as well as future US relations with Russia
and Ukraine.
The Kremlin on Wednesday downplayed the Axios report. When
asked about it, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that there are “no new
developments to report so far” regarding an end to the war.
“There were discussions in Anchorage. Beyond what was
discussed in Anchorage, there have been no updates yet,” he said, referencing a
meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump in Alaska in August.
Europe and Ukraine’s involvement in the talks so far remains
unclear, the source in the CNN report said, as well as whether they would
support such a plan.
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