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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, 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 first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team 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 given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”