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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His 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 resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary 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 presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”