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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be 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 lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day 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 officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”