🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical 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 deal was merely a preliminary proposal 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 recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”