🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

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 aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”