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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate 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 objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional 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 confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire 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 potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe 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 peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”