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

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

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff 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 latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature 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 moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day 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. “It 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 later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”