US military officials in Ukraine to discuss ceasefire

International Desk

The US military has confirmed that top US military officials have arrived in Ukraine to hold talks in an effort to end the war with Russia.

A delegation led by US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday and is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, after Zelensky returns home from a visit to Turkey.

Meanwhile, international media outlets have reported that the United States and Russia have prepared a new peace plan, which includes a major compromise proposal from Ukraine. However, neither Washington nor Moscow has officially confirmed the plan.

Earlier on Wednesday, at least 26 people were killed in Russian missile and drone strikes on the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, local officials said. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Secretary Driscoll and his team arrived in Kiev this morning. They will meet with Ukrainian officials as part of a fact-finding mission and discuss efforts to stop the fighting,” US Army spokesman Colonel David Butler said in a statement.

Driscoll is accompanied by US Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, US Army Europe’s top commander General Chris Donahue, and Sergeant Major Michael Weimer.

This is the first visit to Ukraine by such a high-ranking US military official since the Trump administration took office in January.

A photo released on Wednesday showed Driscoll shaking hands with Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal in Kiev.

Shamihal later wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “We discussed the next steps in implementing the historic defense agreement signed between President Zelensky and President Trump.”
He thanked the United States for approving an aid package of about $105 million for Patriot air-defense systems.

A Ukrainian official told CBS that the talks will focus on the military situation on the front lines and a possible ceasefire plan. He added that “President Zelensky and President Trump have already agreed to a ceasefire along the current front lines and some agreements have been reached on security guarantees.”

Meanwhile, multiple media outlets, including Axios, the Financial Times and Reuters, have reported, citing sources, that the United States and Russia have secretly drawn up a proposal to end the war. It calls for Kiev to cede some territory and weapons, as well as significantly reduce the size of its armed forces.

It is reported that Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin’s representative Kirill Dmitriev worked on a 28-point peace plan.

However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down the reports. “We have nothing new. It’s all a continuation of the ‘Anchorage spirit’ of the Putin-Trump meeting in Alaska,” he said.

No agreement from that one-day meeting has yet been released.

Zelensky has repeatedly stressed that Ukraine will never cede territory to Russia.

Kiev and its Western allies—including the United States—have been calling for an immediate ceasefire, but Moscow has been rejecting it and offering conditions that Kiev says are tantamount to surrender.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently said that Moscow’s preconditions for peace talks—including the withdrawal of territory, a reduction in the size of the Ukrainian military, and a neutral stance—repeated those set by Putin before the 2022 invasion.