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

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”