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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living 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 primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said 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. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”