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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted 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 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 top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was merely 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 offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”