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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's 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 Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance'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 demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, 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 clarify that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”