Wednesday’s meeting at the NATO headquarters in Brussels was, on paper, about coordinating military aid for Ukraine and welcoming the new US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth into the international fold. In practice, it was a day that saw the Trump administration upend the alliance’s approach to this almost 3-year-old war, lay out a vision that seemed to deliver some of Moscow’s key demands, and leave NATO allies fighting to avoid the appearance of disunity.

There were, of course, clear signs this was not going to be smooth sailing. US President Donald Trump fired the starting gun on this critical week of diplomacy by pouring cold water on Ukraine’s hopes of a favorable peace deal.

“They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” he said on Fox News on Monday. European leaders have since been tight-lipped about Trump’s comments. “There are different comments now coming out,” said Latvia’s Defense Minister Andris Sprūds on Wednesday, “it is important to see a very clear specific plan.” Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte sidestepped the issue when questioned by CNN at his pre-summit briefing, simply noting, “We are intensely coordinating with President Trump’s team at all levels, and these are very good conversations.”

But coordinating with allies may not be a top priority for the Trump administration. Overnight it has lurched the NATO alliance from a stated policy that Ukraine was on an “irreversible path” to membership, to Hegseth’s blunt statement: “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”

Several of his European counterparts tried to argue the two positions were not incompatible.

“We as a NATO alliance, to which (Hegseth) also gave the firmest possible continuing commitment, have always been clear that Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO,” said UK Defense Secretary John Healey. “That is a process that will take some time.” He deflected CNN’s question on whether Hegseth’s comment risks the appearance of capitulating to Moscow.

Estonia’s Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur similarly pointed out in an interview with CNN that Hegseth’s statement contained no time frame. “What Pete Hegseth said … is that the outcome of the peace negotiations cannot be the membership of NATO,” he argued. “He didn’t exclude that one day Ukraine can be a member of NATO.”

Whether or not this, or Hegseth’s comment that Ukrainian ambitions to return to pre-2014 borders were “unrealistic,” were meant as a break with previous policy, one thing is clear. “The US is quite happy to march to its own beat and leave Europe and Ukraine to pick up the pieces,” said Matthew Savill, Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London.

“European countries have to get with the mood music … If they think any US official or politician is going to stick their neck out for Europe, on Europe’s behalf, they are kidding themselves.”

News at the end of the day in Brussels, that while NATO ministers tried to coordinate efforts to counter Russian aggression, President Trump spent 90 minutes on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin is a case in point. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, when asked about this at a briefing, simply walked away from the cameras.

Amongst all the status-quo-churning statements from the Trump administration, there is one hard truth Europe must face. The 2% defense spending target, which a third of NATO members haven’t even hit yet, is looking increasingly outdated. Hegseth even name-checked his boss to drive the message home.

“Two percent is not enough; President Trump has called for 5%, and I agree,” said Hegseth. “The United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency.” And the urgency is not only coming from the US. “If we stick to 2% we cannot defend ourselves in four to five years,” said Rutte. “It is crucial that Russia’s rearmament is met by us.”

On this point, it’s hard to find a NATO minister that wouldn’t say they agree. Still, it is what they actually do that will matter. “We heard (Hegseth’s) call for European nations to step up. We can, and we will,” promised UK Defense Secretary Healey.

And yet the UK’s government has committed to raising its spending only from the current 2.3% level to 2.5% of GDP, without specifying a time period.

Caught between a United States promising “resourcing trade-offs” as it prioritizes the Pacific, and a Russia whose defense industry is already vastly outproducing the EU, this may be a reality NATO’s European members can no longer just agree with.

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Hegseth says Ukraine cannot expect return to old borders, NATO membership

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a return to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders was unrealistic and the Trump administration does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of a solution to the war triggered by Russia's invasion.

Speaking at a meeting of Ukraine's military allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Hegseth delivered the clearest and bluntest public statement so far on the new U.S. administration's approach to the nearly three-year-old war.

"We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective," Hegseth told the meeting of Ukrainian officials and more than 40 allies.

"Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering," he added.

He also told Washington's NATO allies that they would have to step up and assume greater responsibility for Europe's security. He said "stark strategic realities", such U.S. border security issues and threats posed by China, prevented the U.S. from being "primarily focused on the security of Europe".

His remarks on Ukraine were a stark change from the stance of the Biden administration and many of Ukraine's closest allies, who had declared they would support Kyiv for as long as necessary and stressed the importance of territorial integrity.

His comments also suggested that Kyiv would have to abandon some of its key war aims - regaining territory from Russia and securing protection from future attacks through membership of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance.

While Trump administration officials had signalled for some time that they would not support those goals, Hegseth's on-camera remarks made that stance clear to the global public.

Though Ukraine set its sights on ejecting all Russian troops from its territory for much of the war, it has increasingly acknowledged that retaking its land by force is unfeasible and that diplomacy is a more realistic course of action.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NO US TROOPS IN UKRAINE

Hegseth said any durable peace must include "robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again". But he said U.S. troops would not be deployed to Ukraine as part of such guarantees.

He also said "the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement".

Instead, security guarantees should be backed by "capable European and non-European troops", the Pentagon chief said.

"If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and they should not be covered under Article 5," he said, referring to the alliance's mutual defence clause.

Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and then backed pro-Russian separatists in an armed insurgency against Kyiv's forces in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine.

Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukraine's territory, mainly in the east and south.

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