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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private 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 conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone 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 delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”