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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal 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 largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

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 conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”