🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, 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 proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, 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 contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”