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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale 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 Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state 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 Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, 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 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 conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, 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 team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”