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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 conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

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

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past 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 initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”