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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for resolving this war based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical 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 deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”