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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled 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 mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance 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 hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain 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 emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”