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

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

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback 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 called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”