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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative 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 reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

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

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

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

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be 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 lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary 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 offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”