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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views 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 deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, 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 preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”