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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”