Thursday, March 20, 2025
Thursday, March 20, 2025
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said today Ukraine should recognize that returning to its pre-2014 borders with land currently occupied by Russia is an "unrealistic objective," noting that adding the country to NATO is also off the table.
“Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he said during a meeting of the 50-nation Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, which was chaired for the first time by the United Kingdom and not the United States.
Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukraine, with land taken mostly in the east and south in an invasion that began three years ago, and Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
The way forward, Hegseth said, is to guarantee Ukrainians security with European and non-European troops, though not from the United States and not under the protection of NATO.
“If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission,” he said. “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine.”
Hegseth also said Europe must do more to provide the lion’s share of Ukraine’s security going forward as the United States focuses its attention on China in the Indo-Pacific and southern border security.
“Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine,” he said. “Members of this contact group must meet the moment. This means: Donating more ammunition and equipment. Leveraging comparative advantages. Expanding your defense industrial base. And importantly, leveling with your citizens about the threat facing Europe.”
For the past three years, the 50-nation UDCG has provided Ukraine with more than $126 billion in military aid, with $66.5 billion coming from the United States.
Hegseth said the United States will remain committed to NATO but expects European nations to spend more on their own defense.
“The United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency,” he said. “Rather, our relationship will prioritize empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security.”
The Trump administration, Hegseth said, is pushing all NATO members to begin spending 5% of their gross domestic product on national defense, which is above the 2% that members have agreed to, and many have not yet reached, including the United States, which spends around 3.4% on the military.
“Together, we can establish a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and Pacific respectively,” Hegseth said.
Meanwhile, President Trump posted on Truth Social today that he has begun negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
“We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together,” Trump wrote. “But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”
Trump said he and Putin have also agreed to visit each other’s nations and that he intended to contact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “to inform him of the conversation.”