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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

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

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial 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, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living 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 tasked his team with obtaining a agreement 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 notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly 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 called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”