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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic first 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 top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this past 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.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”