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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong 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 last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It 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 later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”