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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, international 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 adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to consent 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 based on input from each party of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was just a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”