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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

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

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, 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 ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

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

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent 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 both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”