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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser 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 developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went 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 palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

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

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I think 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. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”