America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.
Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.
Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.
This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.
Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.
Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.
Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.
But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.
In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.
“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating 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 primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.
That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.
Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.
However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:
“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”
Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.
“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”
Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”
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