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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including 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 supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople 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 past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given 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 a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

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

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”