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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

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. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide 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 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 working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation 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 initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”