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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new 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 endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”