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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened 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 pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head 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 White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”