🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first 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, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

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

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”