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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will persist to develop a set of possible ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from each party of this conflict.”

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

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is offered as a solid framework for ongoing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”