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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent 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 misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, 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 ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, 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 staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator 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 merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”