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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 resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous 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 agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted 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 developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a signature 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 endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable 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 discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”