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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end 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 President Trump's 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 efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

Following a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff 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 plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”