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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe 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. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”