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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

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

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”