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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial 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 swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, 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 plan, 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 proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored 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 accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly 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 merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”