🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

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

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes 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 sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

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 staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

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 called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”