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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser 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, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople 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 maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating 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 instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic 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 gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”