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America's Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. His close connection with JD Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic VP at the center of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his last week's visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early attempts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were described as turbulent.

His strong relationship with Vance, with whom he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist VP in talks to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a swift settlement that Ukrainian leaders have called a capitulation.

Following a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be shaped by a small group of Trump's top aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some key situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. European officials, meanwhile, were irritated by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

However, 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 peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be agreeable to each party, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or officials living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by smart people living in the real world.”

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 securing a signature on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the White House to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation 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 first response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complicated and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate both sides to agree to challenging but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this war based on feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

In private, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to clarify that the agreement was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio did make a call to us this day and I believe he made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a offer 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 written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Moscow. But, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”