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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising 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 Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”