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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

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

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

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

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone 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 original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, 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 lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”