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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”