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The US Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the White House's latest proposal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with Vice President Vance has placed a close associate of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of Donald Trump latest push to conclude the war.

Prior to his recent trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his initial efforts to sell the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a close friendship, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist VP in talks to end the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Negotiations

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's rocky initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against demands from the US to agree to a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have described as a capitulation.

Following a chaotic initial year in office, international actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key aides, such as top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the latest proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, alongside the Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev.

“All objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is developing either misunderstands the proposal or misrepresents some critical situation on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial 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 constituency.

However, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most forceful spokespeople for the agreement in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for accepting a peace framework that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the war from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by unsuccessful negotiators or politicians living in a fantasy land,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the real world.”

It was Vance who followed up on the introduction of the peace plan in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly instructed his team with obtaining a signature on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a distinctly more enthusiastic endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government 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 weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help refine the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to leaders in Kyiv.

But, his first response to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complicated and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “Furthermore, achieving a durable peace will necessitate each party to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of possible ideas for ending this war drawing from input from each party of this conflict.”

In private, 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 called lawmakers to clarify that the deal was merely a initial offer from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this day and I believe he emphasized to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” stated Rounds. “The document is not our suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “This ceasefire plan was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong framework for continuing discussions. It is derived from input from the Russian side. But, it is additionally based on earlier and current input from Ukraine.”