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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides 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 agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”