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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, 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 supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, 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 endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

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

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”