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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

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

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

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

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance 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 administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”