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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “It might 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 conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky 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 initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”