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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

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

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal 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 under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon 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. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”