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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be 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 finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, 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 largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

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

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 ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”