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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal 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 initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state 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.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “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 staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 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 violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. 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 preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”