🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

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

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up 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 week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker 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 initiative pushed 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 proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”