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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal 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 forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy 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,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also 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 early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone 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 recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”