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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top 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 proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, 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 presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”