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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal 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 ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat 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 stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly 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 called legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day 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 representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”