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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

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

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

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”