🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear 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 ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”