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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the war.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that local officials have called a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes 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 sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position 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 officials to help moderate the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of possible solutions for resolving this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“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 proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It 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 later stated. “The framework is offered as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Moscow. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”