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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial visit to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be 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 of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the recent proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a list of possible solutions for ending this conflict based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”