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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state 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 Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts 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 counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates 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 asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential 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 said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”