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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce 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 dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”