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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is developing either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

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

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 obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation 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 leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Russian side. However, it is also based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”