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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

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

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part 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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”