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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with obtaining a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later stated. “It is offered as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”