🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme 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 stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”