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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone 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 representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

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 discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”