🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

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

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support 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 gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled 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 acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative 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 suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”