🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled 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 endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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 ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”