🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, 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 echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”