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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration 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 ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think 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 recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”