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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

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

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”