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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit 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 agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

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

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. 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.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team 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 authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. 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 advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”