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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

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

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial 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 agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

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

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”