🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded 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 surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”