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Dan Driscoll How'drone guy' became key player in US plan
The Guardian
|November 24, 2025
Little in Dan Driscoll's résumé suggests he has the qualifications to understand the often tortured and bloody history of relations between Russia and Ukraine.
A former investment banker with a degree in business administration, the current US army secretary's main calling card for a prominent role in the Trump administration may be a friendship with JD Vance dating from when they were at Yale Law School.
Against that thin backdrop, Driscoll now finds himself in the unlikely role of US point man between Kyiv and Moscow as Donald Trump seeks to live up to his promise to end the near four-year war, something he once promised to do on day one of his presidency.
Indeed, it is Driscoll's very unfamiliarity with the underlying issues that may make him suited for a role Trump assigned him last week, as a messenger between Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Previously seen by the president as the "drone guy" due to his interest in state of the art technology, the army chief - not yet 40 - found himself on Thursday delivering a 28-point White House peace plan to Zelenskyy that Ukrainians and their European allies have denounced as a "capitulation" that in effect rewards Moscow for its aggression.
He is expected to go to Russia this week to discuss the plan with the Kremlin and will also talk to the US's European Nato allies - a delicate task given the gulf that has opened up between Europe and the Trump administration.
This story is from the November 24, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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