🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, 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 endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could 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 mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration 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 weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

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

“The Secretary made 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,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”