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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet 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 first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for ending this war based on input 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 contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”