🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal 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 peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “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 ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. 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 agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”