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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation 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 renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions 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 forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”