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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly 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 stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from each party of this war.”

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

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”