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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

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

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”