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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

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

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew 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 speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part 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 acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”