🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, 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 outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled 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 accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, 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 obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”