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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff 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 proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”