🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”