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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly 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 government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator 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 offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day 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. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”