🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied 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 Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”