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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“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,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”