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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end 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 forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

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

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, 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 peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback 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 agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”