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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed 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 promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions 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 assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration 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 past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas 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 Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”