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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit 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 swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

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

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal 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 criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical 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 clarify that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”