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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, 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 constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored 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 endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

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

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”