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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

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

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”