🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, 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 offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”