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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer 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 conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “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 create a set of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”