🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”