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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide 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 latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

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

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”