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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored 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 largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. 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 deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made 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,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”