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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.

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

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, 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 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 made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

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