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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump 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 swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser 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 crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It 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 stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”