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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It 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. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

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

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”