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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit 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 close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

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

“The Secretary did make a call to us this afternoon 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 representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”