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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

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

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored 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 mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”