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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”