🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

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

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer 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 written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”