🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, 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 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 produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”