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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation 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 Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”