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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

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

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser 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 developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”