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America's Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll, was an unlikely diplomat for the Trump administration newest initiative to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Driscoll's close relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a close associate of the Euroskeptic vice-president at the forefront of Donald Trump latest effort to settle the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a negotiator or diplomat, and his early efforts to promote the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled chaotic.

Driscoll's close relationship with Vance, who he attended Yale and maintains a personal bond, indicate the resurgence of the isolationist vice-president in talks to end the Ukraine war.

Vance's Role in Peace Negotiations

This was Vance who intervened during Volodymyr Zelenskyy disastrous initial trip to the Trump White House in March and insisted he show Trump more courtesy. Currently, Ukraine is again pushing back against pressure from the US to agree to a quick settlement that local officials have described as a surrender.

After a chaotic first year in power, foreign policy actions in the White House are reportedly influenced by a small group of Trump's key aides, including top aide Susie Wiles, rightwing adviser Stephen Miller, diplomat Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and finally Vance.

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

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

Early Efforts and European Reactions

Vance's early efforts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while simultaneously seeking to restore relations with Moscow, were unsuccessful and left his camp feeling disappointed with their Russian interlocutors. Leaders in Europe, meanwhile, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their voters, who Vance said held restrictionist and conservative positions similar to those of Trump's own supporters.

But, the recently published peace deal closely resembled his positions, and he has been one of the most assertive spokespeople for the deal in the administration, even as the US has been under fire for endorsing a ceasefire plan that largely resembles Vladimir Putin's maximalist demands.

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

“Peace will not be made by failed negotiators or officials residing in a dream world,” he added. “It could be made by intelligent people living in the actual situation.”

Additionally, it was Vance who continued on the presentation of the peace plan in a conversation with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had primarily instructed his team with securing a agreement on the ceasefire accord prior to Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

The Secretary of State's Reaction and Internal Concerns

Vance's stance was a notably more enthusiastic support of the proposal than that expressed by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has gone from a uncertain stature inside the administration to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that traveled to Geneva this past weekend to meet with Ukrainian leaders to help refine the original 28-point peace plan in order to make it more acceptable to leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial reaction to the agreement was lukewarm:

“Ending a complex and violent conflict such as the one in Ukraine demands an thorough exchange of serious and pragmatic proposals,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, achieving a lasting peace will necessitate each party to agree to difficult but necessary compromises. This is the reason we are and will continue to develop a set of potential ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from input from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was reportedly much more skeptical of the proposal. The GOP lawmaker Mike Rounds said last week at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to explain that the deal was merely a initial proposal from the Russians and not an plan advocated by the administration.

“Rubio made a phone call to us this day and I think he emphasized to us that we are the receivers of a proposal that was delivered to one of our officials,” said Rounds. “The document is not our recommendation, it is not our ceasefire proposal.”

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “The peace proposal was written by the US,” he later stated. “The framework is presented as a strong structure for ongoing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Russian side. But, it is also informed by previous and ongoing input from Ukraine.”