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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

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

Additionally, 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 obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

That 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 traditional hardliner in the government 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 refine 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 tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

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

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”