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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting 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 input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly 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 called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”