🔗 Share this article

America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war 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 living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed 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 White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this war based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly 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 called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone 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,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”