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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's trip 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 turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople 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 demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”