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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

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

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded 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 surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats 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 presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly 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 lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”