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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the 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 deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “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 possible solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”