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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent plan, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misstates some key reality on the ground,” the VP wrote.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial efforts at hammering out a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme 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.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement 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 proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of potential solutions for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is also informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”