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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent push to settle the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance 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 conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”