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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

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

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

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

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

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

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

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”