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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to end the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close connection with JD Vance has placed a key ally of the Euroskeptic VP at the forefront of Donald Trump recent push to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was not known as a negotiator or statesman, and his initial attempts to promote the deal to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's strong ties with Vance, with whom he studied and maintains a personal bond, signal the resurgence of the non-interventionist vice-president in negotiations to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky initial visit to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more respect. Currently, Ukraine is once again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift settlement that local officials have called a capitulation.

After a chaotic first year in power, international actions in the White House are reportedly shaped by a small group of Trump's top advisers, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing advisor Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, secretary of state Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

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

“Every criticism of the peace framework the administration is working on either misinterprets the framework or misrepresents some key reality on the ground,” Vance wrote.

Early Efforts and EU Reactions

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a peace deal with Russia, while also seeking to renew ties with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling frustrated with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were irritated by his initial remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative positions close to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the new peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most forceful advocates for the agreement in the government, even as the US has been criticized for accepting a peace framework that mostly echoes Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

In social media updates this past weekend, Vance asserted that a peace deal would have to produce a ceasefire that honored Ukrainian independence, be acceptable to both sides, and stop the conflict from resuming.

“Peace will not be made by failed diplomats or officials residing in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It could be made by smart people operating in the actual situation.”

It was Vance who continued on the introduction of the ceasefire proposal in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his staff with securing a agreement on the peace deal prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Response and Private Concerns

That was a distinctly more full-throated endorsement of the proposal than that expressed by the top diplomat and national security adviser, Marco Rubio, a more traditional hardliner in the government who has gone from a shaky position inside the administration to more stable footing.

Rubio was part of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials to help refine the original 28-point ceasefire proposal in order to make it more palatable to authorities in Kyiv.

However, his first reaction to the deal was tepid:

“Stopping a complex and deadly conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough discussion of substantive and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio stated recently. “And, securing a durable ceasefire will necessitate each party to consent to difficult but essential concessions. This is the reason we are and will persist to create a list of potential ideas for ending this conflict drawing from input from each party 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 contacted legislators to explain that the agreement was just a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a call to us this afternoon and I think he made it very clear to us that we are the receivers of a offer that was presented to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “It is not our recommendation, it is not our peace plan.”

Rubio acted swiftly to fall in line. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he subsequently stated. “It is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. It is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”