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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This 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 pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, 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 misinterprets the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of running from their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

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

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable 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 extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to agree to challenging but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for ending this war drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think 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 ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”