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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit 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 accept a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

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

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance 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 hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House 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 original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated 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 proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”