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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as 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 advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated 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 said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating 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 team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator 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 preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”