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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including 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 supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living 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 tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration 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 authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”