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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration latest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

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

Following a tumultuous initial year in power, international decisions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misstates some key reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Efforts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to both sides, and prevent the war from restarting.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call 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 Private Doubts

That was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled 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 authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a lasting peace will require each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. That is why we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for resolving this conflict based on feedback 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 clarify that the agreement was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the White House.

“The Secretary did make a phone call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he later wrote. “It is presented as a strong structure for ongoing negotiations. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is also based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”