🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

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 courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”