🔗 Share this article

America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, 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 accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement 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 conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”