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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”