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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal 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 criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, 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 ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”