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

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled 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 ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”