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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

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

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

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

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar 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 spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day 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,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”