🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. 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 deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”