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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

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

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal 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 under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”