🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit 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 quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, 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, envoy 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, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living 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 staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered 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. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”