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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor 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 crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful 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 explain that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”