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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer 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 first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will require both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”