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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan 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 Reaction and Private Concerns

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

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

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”