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The US Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an surprising envoy for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's strong connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump recent effort to settle the conflict.

Before his last week's trip to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or diplomat, and his initial efforts to promote the deal to European policymakers were labeled chaotic.

His close ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the rising influence of the isolationist VP in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine crisis.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

It was Vance who stepped in during Ukraine's president's disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is once again resisting demands from the US to accept a quick deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous first year in office, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

Vance has been a outspoken supporter of the latest proposal, which was crafted by Witkoff and Trump's relative Jared Kushner, together with the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“Every objection of the ceasefire plan the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misstates some critical reality on the ground,” Vance stated.

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to renew relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early speeches, in which he accused them of running from their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and right-leaning views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal mirrored his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the deal in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's extreme terms.

In posts this past weekend, Vance argued that a ceasefire agreement would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and stop the war from restarting.

“A ceasefire will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It might be made by smart people operating in the real world.”

Additionally, it was Vance who followed up on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal before Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Doubts

That was a notably more full-throated support of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hawk in the administration who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm standing.

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

But, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote over the weekend. “And, achieving a durable peace will necessitate both sides to consent to challenging but essential compromises. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on feedback from each party of this war.”

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

“The Secretary made a call to us this afternoon and I think he emphasized to us that we are the recipients 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 acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from input from the Russian side. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing input from Ukraine.”