U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is in Abu Dhabi to meet with Russian officials, two U.S. officials and two diplomatic sources who were not authorized to speak publicly told CBS News.
“Secretary Driscoll met with members of the Russian delegation [Monday night] for several hours in Abu Dhabi. He is scheduled to meet with them again throughout the day [Tuesday] to discuss the peace process and rapidly move the peace negotiations forward,” a U.S. official told CBS News.
It is not clear who else is in the U.S. delegation in Abu Dhabi.
The meetings come amid an intensifying push by President Trump to secure a ceasefire in the almost four-year-long Russia-Ukraine war, with U.S. officials holding discussions with envoys from both countries.
Over the weekend, Driscoll, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mr. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and diplomats from Ukraine and European allies attended talks in Geneva, Switzerland. Driscoll’s meeting with Russian officials also follows a visit to Ukraine’s capital last week.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have also discussed a potential visit to the U.S. this week by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, CBS News reported on Sunday. There are currently no hard plans for a visit by the Ukrainian leader.
It remains unclear how close Russia and Ukraine are to a deal.
Last week, CBS News obtained a draft of one Trump administration-backed proposal to end the war. The proposed plan included several provisions that Zelenskyy has rejected in the past, such as a requirement that Ukraine give up its entire Donetsk region — including parts that aren’t occupied by Russia — and an end to the country’s push to join NATO.
There is also an accompanying document related to security guarantees, according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday the document specifies that the U.S. intends to offer “security assurances” that she said are along the lines of Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits members to come to the defense of a NATO state that is attacked.
On Saturday, a group of NATO members and other U.S. allies released a joint statement calling the proposed peace plan “a basis which will require additional work.”
The White House said in a statement Sunday night that U.S. and Ukrainian officials had “drafted an updated and refined peace framework” following the discussions in Geneva. Rubio described one session in Geneva as “very meaningful” but added that “there’s still some work left to do, and that’s what our teams are going to be doing right now.”
Mr. Trump has pressed Zelenskyy to reach a deal by Thanksgiving, though Rubio described that deadline as flexible on Sunday.
A U.S. official told CBS News that Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to believe that he will take the Donetsk region of Ukraine one way or the other – either through a negotiated settlement or on the battlefield. The Trump administration’s negotiations in Geneva began from the premise that Putin is correct.
While that same U.S. official declined to provide a U.S. assessment of whether Ukraine is losing the war in the East, the U.S. official said that the trajectory of the fighting points to Russia taking Donetsk. The official indicated that the Russian progress in the eastern frontline city of Pokrovsk, which is a logistics hub for Ukraine, was not a positive sign for Kyiv’s defensive prospects. Russian media often refers to Pokrovsk as the “gateway” to Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region.