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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

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

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”