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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It 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 ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner 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 traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make 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 presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”