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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

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 described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement 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 shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”