🔗 Share this article

The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed 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 developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

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

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. 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 merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”