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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was developed 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,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting 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 produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

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

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”