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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit 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 agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, 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 mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this 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.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”