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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the agreement to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

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

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan 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 stature inside the White House to more firm standing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a list of potential solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was just a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and current input from Ukraine.”