🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

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

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published 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 echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”