America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.
Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.
His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.
This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.
After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat 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 relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.
Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar 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 advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.
In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.
“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”
Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.
That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk 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 weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.
However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:
“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”
Behind closed doors, 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 contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary 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 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 ceasefire proposal.”
Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”
Escritora y analista cultural con experiencia en medios internacionales, apasionada por explorar cómo las ideas locales impactan en el mundo.
