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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his early attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a durable peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”