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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

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

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

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 conventional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing negotiations. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”