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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

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

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. 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 deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

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