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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest 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 recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

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

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer 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 fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”