🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, 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 echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”