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America's Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration latest proposal to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine crisis.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's key aides, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken advocate of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist terms.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians residing in a dream world,” he added. “An agreement could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily tasked his team with obtaining a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

Vance's stance was a notably more full-throated support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk 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 delegation that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point peace plan in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will continue to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict based on input from each party of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more doubtful of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted lawmakers to explain that the deal was just a initial 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 delivered to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for ongoing negotiations. It is based on input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and current contributions from Ukraine.”