🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

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

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”