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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong 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.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump 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 quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went 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 acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”