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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

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

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”