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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course 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.

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

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored 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 ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”