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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning 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 accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

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

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio 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,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”