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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

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

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

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

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”