🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized 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 maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

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 advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat 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 Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented 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 written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”