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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed 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 firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past 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 deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will require each party to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, 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 called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a initial 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 recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is also based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”