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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

His strong ties with Vance, who he studied and shares a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a quick settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal advocate of the latest plan, which was developed 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 working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early efforts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to produce a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House 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 initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid framework for continuing negotiations. The proposal is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”