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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 placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

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

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, 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 peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”