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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, 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 under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan 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 offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”