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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions 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 administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled 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 authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”