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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new 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 accepting a peace framework that largely echoes 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 independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

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

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went 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 palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement 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 afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”