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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”