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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

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 turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, 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 resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”