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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was 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 Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated 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. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”