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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including 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 developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal 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 under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It 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 subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”