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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

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

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this 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 deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical 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 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 emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”