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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative 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 wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”