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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

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

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”