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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early 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 VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful 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 past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” 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 subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”