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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining 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 endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”