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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”