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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who 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 Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”