🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This 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 again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally 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 criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled 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 ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”