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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the Trump 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 local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly 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 government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made 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. “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. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”