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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party 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 conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative 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 representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”