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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published 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 criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”