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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical 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 explain that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented 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 subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and current input from Ukraine.”