US-Russia Talks in Abu Dhabi on Ukraine Peace Plan

U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi on Monday for several hours of closed-door discussions aimed at advancing a peace plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine, a U.S. official said. The talks, which were set to continue on Tuesday, follow weekend negotiations in Geneva between American and Ukrainian officials that produced revisions to a U.S.-drafted proposal.

The Abu Dhabi meeting centers on a framework initially outlined in 28 points by President Donald Trump's team, which Ukrainian and European officials had criticized as overly favorable to Moscow. After the Geneva session, involving U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukrainian representatives, the plan was narrowed to 19 points. Key changes removed provisions for wartime amnesty and limits on the future size of Ukraine's armed forces, according to U.S. officials familiar with the discussions. The revised document retains elements requiring Ukraine to forgo NATO membership, relinquish control of certain areas in the Donbas region still held by Kyiv, and freeze current front lines in the Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.