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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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 reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”