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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make 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 presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”