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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

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

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”