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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

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

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

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

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”