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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also 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 remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal 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 under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from each party 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”