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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated 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 recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”