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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled 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 endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past 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.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

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 ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

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

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”