U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi on Monday to discuss a plan to end the war in Ukraine, and talks will continue on Tuesday, a U.S. official told CNN.
The talks came after days of intense diplomatic efforts as the United States renewed its push for a resolution to the war, and came amid deadly attacks by Russia and Ukraine on each other on Tuesday night that left at least six people dead in Ukraine’s capital Kiev and three others in Russia’s Rostov region.
The official added that the talks with Russia, which followed the U.S.-Ukraine talks in Geneva over the weekend, were aimed at laying the groundwork for future higher-level engagement, and that the Russian delegation was attending with President Vladimir Putin’s approval.
Driscoll is the most senior non-diplomat member of the U.S. delegation in Abu Dhabi, the official said. The composition of the Russian delegation was not immediately clear. Talks will continue on Tuesday, the person said.
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said Monday that President Donald Trump is “hopeful and optimistic” that an agreement can be reached to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, following negotiations in Geneva on a 28-point peace proposal developed by the United States with input from Russia and Ukraine.
The first draft of the proposal included a number of concessions to Russia, including provisions for Kiev to cede territory, abandon its NATO ambitions and limit the size of its military.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that the new proposal “contains fewer than 28 items and the framework takes into account many pertinent considerations.”
Zelenskiy said the Ukrainian delegation had returned from Geneva and “reported on the new draft measures.” “This is certainly the right approach. We will discuss sensitive issues with President Trump.”
The Kremlin has not said much about the U.S. plan, but Putin said the U.S. proposal “could, in principle, form the basis of a final peace settlement.” He added that the version of the plan that Russia had seen was “consistent with the discussions” at the U.S.-Russian summit in Alaska earlier this year, but added that it was not clear whether that version had been maintained after days of talks between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia continued its attacks on Ukraine, launching 22 missiles and 460 drones into Ukraine overnight, killing six people and wounding 13, Zelensky said.
President Zelenskiy said the airstrikes caused “severe damage to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure” in Kiev and targeted “the energy sector and everything that sustains normal life.”
Two people, including an 86-year-old woman, were killed in a fire at a house in the city’s Dniprovsky district, Ukraine’s National Police said.
Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said four people were also killed in the city’s Svyatoshinsky district.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, three people were killed and eight others were injured in a large-scale drone attack by Ukraine. According to the report, Russian forces intercepted and destroyed 249 Ukrainian drones overnight, 116 of which were launched over the Black Sea.
Robert Brobdy, commander of Ukraine’s military drone force, on Tuesday hailed the night in Kiev in November as “the most productive” and said the drone strikes had inflicted “deep damage” on Russia.
CNN’s Svitlana Vlasova and Victoria Butenko contributed reporting.
