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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said 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 subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”