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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, 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 constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart 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 prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”