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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

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 top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

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

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly 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 footing.

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

But, his first response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

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

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

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”