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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed 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 offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”