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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat 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 relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. 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 views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, 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 accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

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

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”