🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

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

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”