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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

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

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

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

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated 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 transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I think 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 suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”