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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent 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 misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”