🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

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. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide 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 proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”