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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part 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 first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”