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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

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

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest 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 administration is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close 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 assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued 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 ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”