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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

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

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this 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 war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be 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 called legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”