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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president 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 trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

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

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 agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be 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 legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”