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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

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

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close 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 assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past 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 conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“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 recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”