🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

After a tumultuous initial 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 advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

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

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated 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 durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”