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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to 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 European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers 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 acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”