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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic 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 top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative 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 under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”