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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views 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 assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”