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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe 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. “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 strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”