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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from each party of this war.”

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

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

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 structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”