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The US Army Secretary, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an surprising diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with JD Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic VP at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the war.

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

Driscoll's strong relationship with Vance, with whom he studied and shares a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in negotiations to resolve the Ukraine war.

The VP's Role in Peace Efforts

It was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a surrender.

After a chaotic initial year in office, international decisions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a handful of Trump's key advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, conservative adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some key situation on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Attempts and EU Reactions

Vance's early attempts at hammering out a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his camp feeling frustrated with their Russian interlocutors. European officials, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own constituency.

But, the new ceasefire proposal mirrored his stances, and he has been one of the most assertive advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In posts this past weekend, Vance asserted that a ceasefire agreement would have to establish a truce that respected Ukrainian sovereignty, be acceptable to each party, and prevent the war from resuming.

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

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this Thursday in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Response and Private Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic endorsement of the plan than that given by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more firm standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went to Geneva this weekend to confer with Ukrainian officials to help moderate the initial 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more acceptable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the deal was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine requires an thorough discussion of serious and realistic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a set of possible solutions for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this war.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds stated recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the agreement was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an initiative pushed by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I believe 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 suggestion, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “It is presented as a strong framework for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also based on previous and current contributions from Ukraine.”