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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, 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 positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support 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 White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”