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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

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 described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

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 team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to 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 support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”