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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

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

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire 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 ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might 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 tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace 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 potential solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”