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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong relationship with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the conflict.

Prior to his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial attempts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were described as chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky initial 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 deal that local officials have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a handful of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is developing either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he accused them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been criticized for endorsing a peace framework that mostly resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance argued that a peace deal would have to establish a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be agreeable to each party, and stop the conflict from restarting.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent 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 primarily tasked his staff with securing a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Internal Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hawk in the government who has gone from a shaky stature inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was tepid:

“Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will require each party to agree to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a set of possible solutions for ending this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the proposal. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he later stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”