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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, 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 a member of a US team 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 authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”