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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale 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 Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

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

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

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

Rubio was a member of a US delegation 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 palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“Rubio 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 offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”