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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser 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 crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored 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 accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”