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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff 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 crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”