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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past 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.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker 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 preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”