🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”