Trump Army secretary heads to Abu Dhabi for Russian meetings after US, Ukraine agree 19-point peace plan

Dan Driscoll traveled to the Middle East following a meeting in which U.S. and Ukrainian representatives crafted a new framework designed to halt the continent’s deadliest war since World War II.

The revised proposal—reported to contain about 19 elements—drops the insistence that Ukraine surrender its entire eastern Donbas region to Russia, a point that was fiercely contested in the earlier 28‑point package Driscoll showed President Volodymyr Zelensky last week.

Instead of resolving land issues outright, those disputes will be set aside for later discussion between President Trump and President Zelensky, according to two people who briefed the Post on Monday.

The new draft also removes the stipulation that Ukraine must forgo any future NATO membership plans—a concession that Russian President Vladimir Putin had demanded before launching his February 2022 invasion.

After last week’s Geneva talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, President Zelensky warned on X that Russia might try to “derail this opportunity for an agreement and to prolong the war.”

“We can see which interests are intertwined, and who is trying to weaken our position — Ukraine’s position — spreading disinformation, intimidating our people,” he said. “We are countering every such attempt to derail the end of the war.”

The White House had earlier advocated for Ukraine to adopt the 28‑point peace outline by Thanksgiving, but Trump declared on Saturday that it was not a “final offer,” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the framework as a “living, breathing document.”

Several U.S. and Ukrainian officials said on Monday that the initial plan was largely a Russian “wish list” for ending the war and bore little resemblance to the revisions arrived at in Geneva.

“Very few things are left from the original version,” Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya told the Financial Times on Monday regarding the new plan.