🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties 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 charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day 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 acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”