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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

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

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative 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 crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”