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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course 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 Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”