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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed 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 Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”