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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened 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 resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”