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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of President Trump's recent push to settle the conflict.

Prior to his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he studied and maintains a personal bond, indicate the rising influence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more respect. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a tumultuous first year in office, foreign policy decisions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misunderstands the framework or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, in turn, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and prevent the conflict from restarting.

“Peace won’t be made by unsuccessful diplomats or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “An agreement might be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord before 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 hawk in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was a member of a US delegation that went to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the agreement was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will persist to develop a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called lawmakers to explain that the deal was merely a preliminary proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“The Secretary did make a call to us this day and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a strong framework for ongoing negotiations. It is based on feedback from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”