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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”