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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal 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 under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic 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 transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”