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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened 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 again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key 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 vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”