Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Feb. 12 it is “unrealistic” to expect Russia to return the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine or approve Kyiv’s accession to NATO as part of a negotiated settlement to the almost three-year-old war.
“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine,” Hegseth told a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, where officials from roughly 50 nations gathered to discuss next steps to support Kyiv in its fight against Moscow. “But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.
