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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

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

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal 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 under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input 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 called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”