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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship 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 conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick deal that local officials have described as a surrender.

Following a chaotic first year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held anti-immigration and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned 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 leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will require both sides to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides 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 called lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” said Rounds. “It is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”