🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

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

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet 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 first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, 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 contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”