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America's Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the White House's newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's recent push to conclude the war.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or statesman, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His strong relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a close friendship, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy rocky first trip to the White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to agree to a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in office, foreign policy actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's key advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“All objection of the peace framework the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance stated.

Initial Attempts and European Responses

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial speeches, in which he accused them of running from their constituents, who Vance claimed held anti-immigration and right-leaning positions similar to those of Trump's own constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal closely resembled his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople 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 extreme terms.

In posts this weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed diplomats or politicians living in a dream world,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his team with obtaining a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a shaky position inside the White House to more firm footing.

Rubio was part of a US delegation that traveled to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate 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 tepid:

“Ending a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive discussion of substantive and realistic ideas,” Rubio stated over the weekend. “And, securing a lasting peace will require both sides to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible ideas for resolving this war drawing from input from each party of this war.”

In private, he was said to be much more doubtful of the plan. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had contacted legislators to explain that the deal was just a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the White House.

“The Secretary made a phone call to us this afternoon and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was presented to one of our officials,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “The framework is presented as a strong framework for continuing negotiations. It is based on input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally informed by earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”