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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing 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 relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting 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 early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly 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 explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”