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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing 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 honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”