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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers 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 align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”