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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, 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 rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first 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, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator 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 plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

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