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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

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

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people living 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 primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was part 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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”