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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter 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 ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal 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 criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”