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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation 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 Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned 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 confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. 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 merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”