🔗 Share this article

The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

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

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, 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 close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

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

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”