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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

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

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate 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:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered 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 authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”