🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key 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 advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal 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 fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”