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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”