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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

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

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous first trip to the White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against demands from the US to accept a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial 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.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has gone 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 weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and realistic proposals,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require each party to consent to difficult 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 war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the White House.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”