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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration 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 forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be 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 called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”