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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed 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 claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible solutions for ending this war based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”