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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

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

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

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”