🔗 Share this article

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

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff 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 recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly 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 acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio 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,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”