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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

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

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”