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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated 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 said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

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 ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document 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 stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”