🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This 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 courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

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

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly 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 sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”