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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

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

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer 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 response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe 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 ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”