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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew relations 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 voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

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

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback 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 contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”