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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team 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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” 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 written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”