US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, earlier this year. Photo / Getty Images
The Trump Administration is renewing efforts to end the war in Ukraine, with special envoy Steve Witkoff quietly pushing a revised peace plan that contains some provisions opposed by Kyiv.
Top United States military officials are also undertaking an unusual diplomatic assignment in the Ukrainian capital, according to people familiar with the developments.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who is leading the delegation, is the most senior Pentagon official known to have visited the war-ravaged country since US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House this year.
His arrival in Kyiv today follows a secretive meeting in Miami this past weekend between Witkoff and top advisers to Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the people said, speaking like others on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations.
A breakthrough appears unlikely, however.
One person familiar with Witkoff’s efforts said the Administration’s latest proposal includes several concessions that Zelenskyy will find difficult to approve, including a significant loss of territory and strict limits on Ukraine’s military.
At the same time, Zelenskyy has been weakened by a major corruption scandal that has ensnared several of his close associates.
That - coupled with the exhausting pace of Russian military strikes - could leave the Ukrainian leader with few good options as US officials exert greater pressure on him to accept a deal to end the war.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio lent his public backing to the new diplomatic push, writing on social media that “ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas” and that achieving “a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions”.
It was not immediately clear whether, or how, Driscoll’s trip may be aligned with Witkoff’s negotiations.
A senior Administration official said the Army secretary, who is travelling with two top US generals, will relay his findings to the White House.
Spokespeople for the White House, Ukraine’s presidential office and the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment on the developments. Spokespeople for the State Department did not respond when asked about Witkoff’s proposal.
A US defence official said that, in Ukraine, Driscoll will explore “efforts to end the war”.
The official characterised the trip as a “fact-finding mission” but declined to say who within the Ukrainian Government the American delegation would be meeting or what the content of those gatherings would be.
The latest push for a ceasefire follows Trump’s inconclusive summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the northern summer. The Administration’s effort to continue those talks with a second bilateral meeting, which was to be held in Budapest, collapsed under what US officials said were Putin’s unrealistic, maximalist demands.
The plan pushed by Witkoff this past weekend included a number of proposals Zelenskyy’s Government determined were unworkable, including reducing the size of Ukraine’s Army by half and ceding territory in Luhansk and Donetsk not currently held by Russia, according to a person familiar with the matter.
It would represent “a complete capitulation of Ukraine, and Zelenskyy is not willing to agree to that”, that person said.
It was unclear whether Witkoff’s plan contained elements other than those already rejected by Ukraine.
Having threatened early in the summer to impose new sanctions against Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire, Trump instead held the August summit in Alaska with Putin.
European diplomats briefed by Trump after the meeting said Putin demanded that he be granted all of Donbas, borderland that encompasses Luhansk and Donetsk. Four days after the Alaska meeting, Zelenskyy said after talking with Trump that full occupation of Donbas was a non-starter.
Asked by reporters late last month if he had demanded Ukraine cede Donbas, Trump said: “We think what they should do is just stop where the battle line is right now … I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. Leave it the way it is right now. They can negotiate something later on down the line.”
Days later, Trump said he was unhappy with Putin and imposed new sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil. On Monday, Trump said that pending Senate legislation that would levy secondary sanctions on Russia’s trading partners was “okay with me”.
Trump, whose habit of showing deference to the Russian leader has faced biting criticism throughout much of Europe and in Washington, acknowledged today that what he once thought would be an “easy” conflict to settle had in fact proved quite challenging.
He appeared to fault the Kremlin for that. “I’m a little disappointed in President Putin right now,” Trump said.
In Kyiv, a major corruption scandal has engulfed Zelenskyy’s Government, which could put pressure on him to resign or accept a ceasefire settlement that most Ukrainians would find unacceptable.
The corruption scandal focuses on a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme that has implicated close allies of the President - including his top national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, who was among the officials who met Witkoff in Miami, people familiar with the matter said.
A spokesman at Ukraine’s presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Umerov.
Zelenskyy was in Ankara today for a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss peace efforts.
Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, said it appears that the trip may have come as a result of the intensifying pressure he faces over the corruption investigations.
“There is a question, about whether this would have happened if there hadn’t been this scandal.”
Kyiv is expected soon to lose a key ally in Washington.
Keith Kellogg, the retired three-star general whom Trump made a special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, is expected to leave the Administration in coming months, according to people familiar with the matter.
Kellogg has told officials he feels cut out of the policy process, according to a person who has worked directly with him.
His departure, reported earlier by Reuters, would mark a significant blow for Ukraine, as he has been one of Kyiv’s most effective advocates within the Administration.
Though Kellogg has been frustrated with his ability to steer US policy, he has also been able to get face time with Trump from time to time, a rare asset for Republicans who support Ukraine.
The scope and significance of Driscoll’s visit to Ukraine is unclear. He is travelling with General Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff, and General Christopher Donahue, the service’s top general in Europe, the US defence official said.
The 38-year-old Army veteran is a personal friend and former Yale classmate of Vice-President JD Vance. He is seen as a rising star in the Trump Administration.
As secretary, he has focused on attempting to supercharge the Army for 21st-century warfare, paying particular attention to the proliferation of drones in the Ukraine conflict, along with advancements in artificial intelligence and other nascent technology.
Driscoll has aligned himself with senior Army officers as he attempts to remake the service, and he has occasionally come under attack politically from elements of the far-right, including the influential activist Laura Loomer, who complained that he has not done enough to align himself with Trump.
He has survived the turmoil, in part because of the trust he has built with Vance and others close to the Vice-President, people familiar with the matter said.
Administration officials in recent weeks had offered little sign of activity in the Ukraine talks, with Rubio telling reporters in recent days that the US had come to the conclusion that Russia did not really want peace.
“They’ve made a demand that Ukraine can’t agree to and so that’s sort of where we are at this point,” he said last week.
Russian officials had offered similar assessments. Asked about earlier media reports on the negotiations published by Axios and Politico, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “so far there’s nothing to add to what was discussed in Anchorage”.
Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a key interlocutor for the Kremlin, voiced an optimistic tone on social media, however, sharing reports about his own talks with Witkoff last month. Dmitriev did not respond to a request for comment.
- Siobhán O’Grady, Karen DeYoung, Natalie Allison, Michael Birnbaum, Tara Copp and Alex Horton contributed to this report.