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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

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

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar 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 advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, 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 team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It 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 offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”