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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

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

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative 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 advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

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

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”