🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part 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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, 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 called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”