The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.
Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.
His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.
It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.
After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.
Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.
Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.
But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.
In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.
“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”
It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.
Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.
Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.
However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:
“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”
In private, 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 called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.
“Rubio made 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 officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”
Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”
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