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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest 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 peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, 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 mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating 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 tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be 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 deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal 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 written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”