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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative 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 assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “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 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

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered 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. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”