🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, 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 outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan 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 uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. 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 deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

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