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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

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

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”