🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting 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 charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic 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 uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past 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 initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”