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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration 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 efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

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

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”