U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll shuttled between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi this week, reportedly pressing a peace framework that would slash Kyiv’s military to 800,000 troops—a concession that has intensified fears across Europe that Washington is trading Ukraine’s long-term security for a quick diplomatic win.

The closed-door sessions followed weekend talks in Geneva where U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators trimmed a controversial 28-point proposal to 19 points, according to the Financial Times.

While Ukrainian officials insist the revised framework better reflects their priorities, a U.S. official told CBS News that Kyiv has “largely accepted” the plan with only minor details outstanding—a characterization that sits uneasily with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s caution that “much work” remains.

In Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned Tuesday that any final agreement must preserve understandings reached at an Alaska summit earlier this year.

“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage are erased, it will be a fundamentally different situation,” he said, while praising the Trump administration as the only Western actor showing initiative.

The opaque process has left European capitals grappling with a framework that reportedly accepts Russian control over occupied territories and drops Ukraine’s NATO aspirations—security trade-offs that officials in Brussels warn could institutionalize instability.

With Zelenskyy reportedly expected in Washington later this month to finalize terms directly with Trump, the diplomacy underscores a stark reality: after three and a half years of war, Kyiv appears poised to accept sovereignty limits brokered by its supposed allies, not its own decision-makers.