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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

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

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

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

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this war based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly 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 called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day 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 officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”