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

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio did make a phone 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 representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”