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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close relationship with Vice President Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's disastrous first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

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

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the recent plan, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the recently published ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates 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 maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to 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 plan than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

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

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal 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 day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “It 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 stated. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”