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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction 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 conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

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

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”