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 presidents special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who has been at the center of the administrations 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 Ukraines 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. The discussions come as the Trump administration has tried repeatedly to find an end to the war, only for talks to fall apart after Putin refused to make substantial commitments to the effort. Previous US peace talks had focused on freezing Russian and Ukrainian troops along current battle lines, a proposal that the Kremlin previously rejected.
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