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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly 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 recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive 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 asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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 authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

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 explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”