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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

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

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, 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 accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”