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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions 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 forceful advocates 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 terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”