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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

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

After 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 advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone 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 presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”