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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide 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 latest 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.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

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

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“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 offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”