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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful 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 deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”