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

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, 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 objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer 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 discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated 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 advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”