Trump’s Army Secretary Dan Driscoll Sent to Tackle Russians to Get a Peace Deal Done

Trump’s Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll landed in Abu Dhabi this week to lay out a streamlined peace proposal to Russian officials, fresh off a deal struck between the U.S. and Ukraine on a 19-point framework to halt the grinding conflict. The talks come as Russia unleashes a barrage of missiles and drones on Kyiv, leaving at least seven dead in the capital and more across the country, in what looks like a calculated bid to throw sand in the gears of any settlement.

Driscoll, the youngest Army secretary in U.S. history and known in Pentagon circles as the president’s go-to expert on drone warfare, met with the Russian delegation for hours on Monday and Tuesday. A U.S. Army spokesman confirmed the discussions were progressing smoothly, with Driscoll staying in lockstep with the White House.

“The talks are going well and we remain optimistic,” said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Tolbert.

This push builds on weekend negotiations in Geneva, where American and Ukrainian teams whittled down an initial 28-point plan—dismissed by some as a Russian shopping list—into a more palatable 19 points. Gone are demands for Ukraine to hand over the entire eastern Donbas region outright, with territorial disputes kicked down the road for later talks between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The plan also scraps any immediate path for Ukraine to join NATO, a longtime red line for Moscow that fueled the invasion back in 2022.

A U.S. official put it plainly: “The Ukrainians have agreed to the peace deal. There are some minor details to be sorted out but they have agreed to a peace deal.”

Zelensky, for his part, signaled readiness to move ahead but warned of sabotage. On X, he posted that Russia would try to “derail this opportunity for an agreement and to prolong the war. We can see which interests are intertwined, and who is trying to weaken our position — Ukraine’s position — spreading disinformation, intimidating our people.”

Those words rang true as Russian forces hammered Kyiv overnight, targeting homes, power grids, and supply lines with 22 missiles and over 460 drones. The assault knocked out water, electricity, and heat for swaths of the city, injuring dozens more. Ukraine fired back with its own drone strikes, including one in Russia’s Rostov region that claimed three lives and wounded eight. Drones even strayed into Romanian and Moldovan airspace, risking a wider flare-up in Eastern Europe.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov weighed in, insisting the new proposal must square with agreements from an August summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage.

“After Anchorage, when we thought these understandings had already been formalized, there was a long pause. And now the pause has been broken by the introduction of this document … A whole series of issues there, of course, require clarification.”

Ukraine’s national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, echoed the call for closure, posting on X that Kyiv wants Zelensky to head to the U.S. soon “to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump.” But critics see echoes of capitulation in the framework, with earlier drafts demanding steep concessions from Kyiv that could embolden aggressors elsewhere.

As the 33-month war drags on—Europe’s bloodiest since World War II—Driscoll’s role underscores a shift toward pragmatic deal-making over open-ended support. Security guarantees for Ukraine remain front and center in the talks, with analysts noting the plan’s evolution reflects hard-nosed bargaining to staunch the flow of American dollars and lives into a distant quagmire. Yet with fresh strikes timed suspiciously amid progress, questions linger about who benefits from keeping the flames alive—perhaps shadowy forces in Washington or beyond, whispering doubts to prolong the chaos.