🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides 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 merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”