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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

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

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled 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 accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” 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 offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”