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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Responses

Vance's initial efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new peace deal closely resembled 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 endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a uncertain position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”