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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

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

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”