The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.
Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.
Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.
This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.
After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state 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, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.
“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.
Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.
However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.
In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.
“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”
It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.
Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.
Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.
However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:
“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”
In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.
“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”
Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”
Elena Vance is a digital strategist with over a decade of experience in UK business consulting, specializing in technology-driven growth solutions.