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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

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

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, 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 ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, 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 team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”