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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians 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 presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

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

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

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”