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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew 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 voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

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

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful 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 preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”