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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, 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 extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, 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 called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” 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 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 based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”