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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His strong connection with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled turbulent.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip 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 agree to a quick settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Reactions

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

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he continued. “It could be made by intelligent 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 agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled 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 palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will continue to create a set of potential solutions for ending this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“Rubio did make 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. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”