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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require each party to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical 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 agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary 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 officials,” said 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 stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”