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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this 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 conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible solutions for ending this war drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”