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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing 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 Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker 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 merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day 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 officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”