Senior Pentagon officials have arrived in Ukraine to “discuss efforts to end the war” with Russia, the US military said.
The group, led by US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Thursday when he returns from a trip to Turkey.
On Wednesday, reports began to emerge that the United States and Russia had prepared a new peace plan containing major concessions from Ukraine. Neither Washington nor Moscow have officially confirmed this plan.
Earlier that day, At least 26 people have been killed in a Russian missile and drone attack on the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil. officials there said. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Secretary Driscoll and his team arrived in Kyiv this morning on behalf of the administration on a fact-finding mission to meet with Ukrainian officials and discuss efforts to end the war,” Army spokesman Col. David Butler said in a statement.
Driscoll is joined by U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, U.S. Army Europe's top commander, Gen. Chris Donahue, and Army Senior Maj. Michael Weimer.
Driscoll and General George are the highest-ranking US military officials to hold talks in the Ukrainian capital since President Donald Trump took office in January.
The photo, published Wednesday, shows Driscoll meeting and shaking hands with Ukrainian Defense Minister Denis Shmygal.
In a post on X afterward, Shmygal said, “We are focused on the next steps to implement the historic defense agreements reached by President Zelensky and President Trump.”
He also thanked Washington for “approving the sale of the PATRIOT air defense support package valued at approximately $105 million (£80 million).”
Earlier, a Ukrainian official told CBS, the BBC's US media partner, that talks during the trip would focus on the military situation on the ground, as well as plans for a possible ceasefire.
The unnamed official said: “Presidents Zelensky and Trump have already agreed to stop the conflict along existing lines of engagement, and there are agreements to provide security guarantees.”
This comes after several media outlets reported that the US and Russia had privately developed proposals on how to end the war.
Citing sources familiar with the situation, Axios, the Financial Times and Reuters reported that the plans include Kyiv giving up some territory and weapons, as well as a significant reduction in Ukraine's Armed Forces.
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian leader Vladimir Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev are believed to have been involved in the 28-point peace plan.
The BBC asked the White House and Witkoff's spokesman for comment.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to play down the reports.
“In this case, we have no additional innovations to what we call the 'spirit of Anchorage,'” he told Russian state media on Wednesday, referring to August summit between Putin and Trump in the US state of Alaska.
Any agreements reached during the one-day meeting were not made public.
President Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out any territorial concessions to Russia.
Kyiv and its Western allies, including the United States, have called for an immediate ceasefire along the vast front line, but Moscow has ruled that out, repeating demands that Ukraine says amount to its de facto surrender.
Earlier this month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow's preconditions for a peace deal, including ceding territory, tight limits on the size of the Ukrainian army and the country's neutrality, had not changed since Putin laid them out two months before the full-scale invasion.
