🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably 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 administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated 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 presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”