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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to settle the war.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to agree to a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every criticism of the peace framework the White House is working on either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held anti-immigration and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that largely echoes Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement could be made by smart people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help moderate the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from both sides of this war.”

In private, he was said to be 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 explain that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document 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 later wrote. “The framework is presented as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and current input from Ukraine.”