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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the 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 quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates 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 posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

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 ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”