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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

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

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible solutions for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be 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 called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”