🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”