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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy 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 relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative 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 government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

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

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”