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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

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

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

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

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands 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 ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, 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 forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for resolving this war drawing from feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”