🔗 Share this article

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

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”