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The US Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, emerged as an unlikely envoy for the White House's latest initiative to end the Russian invasion in Ukraine. His strong relationship with Vice President Vance has positioned a key ally of the Eurosceptic vice-president at the center of President Trump's latest effort to conclude the conflict.

Before his recent visit to Kyiv, Driscoll was unrecognized as a mediator or statesman, and his early efforts to sell the agreement to officials in Europe were labeled turbulent.

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

Vance's Involvement in Ceasefire Efforts

This was Vance who intervened during Ukraine's president's rocky first visit to the Trump White House in March and demanded he show Trump more courtesy. Now, Ukraine is again resisting pressure from the US to accept a swift deal that Ukrainian leaders have called a surrender.

After a tumultuous initial year in power, international actions in the White House are said to be influenced by a handful of Trump's top aides, such as chief of staff Susie Wiles, conservative advisor Stephen Miller, envoy Steve Witkoff, State Department head Marco Rubio, and of course Vance.

Vance has been a vocal supporter of the recent proposal, which was developed by Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, alongside the Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

“All criticism of the ceasefire plan the White House is working on either misinterprets the proposal or misrepresents some critical reality on the ground,” the VP stated.

Initial Attempts and EU Responses

Vance's initial attempts at negotiating a ceasefire agreement with Russia, while also attempting to restore relations with Moscow, were fruitless and left his team feeling disappointed with their Russian counterparts. Leaders in Europe, in turn, were angered by his early remarks, in which he charged them of ignoring their constituents, who Vance claimed held restrictionist and conservative views close to those of Trump's own supporters.

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

In posts this 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.

“A ceasefire won’t be made by failed diplomats or officials living in a fantasy land,” he continued. “It might be made by intelligent people operating in the real world.”

It was Vance who continued on the presentation of the ceasefire proposal in a phone call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump had mainly tasked his staff with securing a signature on the ceasefire accord before Thanksgiving this week in the United States.

Rubio's Reaction and Private Concerns

That was a notably more full-throated endorsement of the plan than that given by the secretary of state and security advisor, Marco Rubio, a more conventional hardliner in the administration who has transitioned from a uncertain stature inside the White House to more stable standing.

Rubio was a member of a US team that went 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 leaders in Kyiv.

However, his initial response to the deal was lukewarm:

“Stopping a complex and violent war such as the one in Ukraine demands an extensive exchange of serious and pragmatic ideas,” Rubio wrote recently. “Furthermore, securing a lasting ceasefire will necessitate both sides to consent to difficult but essential concessions. That is why we are and will persist to develop a list of possible ideas for resolving this conflict drawing from feedback from both sides of this conflict.”

Behind closed doors, he was said to be much more skeptical of the plan. The Republican senator Mike Rounds said recently at the Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia that Rubio had called legislators to clarify that the deal was merely a preliminary offer from the Russians and not an initiative advocated by the administration.

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

Rubio moved quickly to align himself. “This ceasefire plan was authored by the US,” he subsequently wrote. “The framework is offered as a solid structure for continuing discussions. The proposal is derived from feedback from the Moscow. However, it is additionally based on earlier and ongoing contributions from Ukraine.”