🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed 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 offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”