🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”