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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that local officials have described as a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the recently published ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement might 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 conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

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

However, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complicated and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable 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 ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from each party of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing discussions. The proposal is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”