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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan 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 recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”