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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was developed 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 working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”