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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's 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 swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past 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.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might 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 mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

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