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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this war drawing from input from each party 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 contacted legislators to clarify that the deal 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 afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”