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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's newest proposal to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, meanwhile, were angered by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that given by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive discussion of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of possible ideas for ending this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. It is based on input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”