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

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

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, 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 recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement 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 social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, 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 contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”