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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, 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 offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”