🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative 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 agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker 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 preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a 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,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”