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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

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

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I think 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. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”