🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist 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 disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide 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 developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for resolving this war based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. 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 just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

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