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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the Trump 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 swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

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

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”