Army secretary set to meet with Zelenskyy to help with Ukraine peace talks, officials say

WASHINGTON (AP) — Several high-ranking Army officials, including Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, are in Ukraine to help with peace talks, U.S. officials said Wednesday, as Trump administration efforts to halt Russia’s war in Ukraine have stalled.

Driscoll had been planning a trip to Ukraine for some time to discuss the country’s drone warfare innovations and tactics, but last week President Donald Trump decided to identify him as a kind of “special representative” to kick-start peace negotiations and conduct a fact-finding mission, one of the officials said.

That official confirmed Driscoll is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week as well as top Ukrainian government, military and defense industry officials.

Driscoll is accompanied by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, the service’s most senior officer; Gen. Chris Donahue, U.S. Army Europe and Africa commanding general; and Sgt. Maj. Michael Weimer, the Army’s top enlisted official, an Army official said.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Olga Stefanishyna, said in a post on Facebook that the U.S. Army officials began their visit by meeting with Ukrainian Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal. She said they were told about the situation on the battlefield and what was needed to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, and the two sides also discussed areas of potential defense cooperation.

Shmyhal posted a picture on X of himself meeting with Driscoll. Both he and the ambassador noted that the Americans and Ukrainians were focused on implementing defense agreements reached between Trump and Zelenskyy.

Neither Ukrainian official mentioned any discussion about renewing peace negotiations with Russia.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller declined to comment on reports that the Trump administration has drafted a new peace plan and had dispatched U.S. defense officials to Kyiv to go over it with the Ukrainians.

“I would agree that that’s an issue in which the president has continued to put at the forefront of our foreign policy goal, which is to reach a settlement in the Ukraine-Russia war, so that we can have peace in Europe and we can end the killing and the slaughter of so many innocents,” Miller said.

The Trump administration’s efforts to broker an end to the war have hit roadblocks since the president met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August. Tough new U.S. sanctions on Russia’s oil industry are aimed at pushing him to the negotiating table.

Trump said last month that he was putting on hold his plan for a meeting with Putin in Budapest, Hungary, because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.”

Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Ankara on Wednesday and said they’re committed to finding a peaceful settlement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Russia was not sending a representative to the meeting in Turkey, but insisted that Moscow was ready to negotiate.

The U.S. official, meanwhile, said Driscoll is hoping to make a subsequent trip to meet with Russian officials for similar negotiations, adding that the intent is to achieve Trump’s desire for peace as quickly as possible in a way that both sides support.

The trip to Ukraine also will help the U.S. address the issue of drone warfare, which military officials have consistently said is being pioneered by Ukraine.

During an appearance Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Driscoll said that drones were the “threat of humanity’s lifetime.”

He has spent a major portion of his tenure as Army secretary pushing greater integration of drones into the U.S. military arsenal.

Shmyhal said in his post that the Americans were shown Ukraine’s “developments in defense innovation: production of FPV drones, interceptors, and deep-strike capabilities.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported the visit by the Army officials.

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.