🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

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

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war based on input from each party of this war.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”