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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance 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 traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”