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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. 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 agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”