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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

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. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

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

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up 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 peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled 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 authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential solutions for ending this war based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly 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. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”