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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a close friendship, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

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

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It might be made by smart people living 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 team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer 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. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”