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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly 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 independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon 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 representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”