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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally 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 Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

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

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

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 staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a uncertain position inside the administration to more firm footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”