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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”