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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration 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 assertive advocates 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 terms.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

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 hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, 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 called lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”