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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, 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 extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”