Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday 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.
“Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he added.
Hegseth’s declaration marked a stark shift in US policy from the open-ended stance of the Biden administration, which had stated it would support Ukraine “as long as it takes” and argued when it came to peace discussions “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
Wednesday’s meeting was the group’s first since Trump was sworn in as the 47th president on Jan. 20.
While Trump has not ruled out supplying Ukraine with additional military aid in exchange for mineral rights or other benefits for the US, he has also tasked his cabinet to look at economic and diplomatic strategies to push for peace.
“Our message is clear, the bloodshed must stop and this war must end,” Hegseth said. “President Trump … intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table, and the US Department of Defense will help achieve this goal.”
The Pentagon chief added that peace can only be achieved “by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.”
“A durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again. This must not be Minsk 3.0,” he said, referring to the first and second Minsk accords that tried and failed to stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015.
“That said, the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth went on, notably not ruling out a future accession unrelated to the outcome of conflict with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously called for NATO membership or nuclear rearmament as security guarantees.
Instead, Hegseth said Wednesday that “any security guarantee” given to Ukraine to prevent a return to war with Russia “must be backed by capable European and non-European troops.”
If this group is “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 Five,” he specified, ruling out US boots on the ground in the war-torn nation.
The secretary also claimed Trump is turning up economic pressure on Russia “to further enable effective diplomacy and drive down energy prices that fund the Russian war machine.
“President Trump is unleashing American energy production and encouraging other nations to do the same,” Hegseth said. “Lower energy prices, coupled with more effective enforcement of energy sanctions, will help bring Russia to the table.”
He also called on Europe to take a stronger role in supporting Ukraine, and repeated Trump’s prior call to raise NATO’s minimum defense spending requirement from 2% of annual GDP to 5%.
“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,” he said.
“Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO. As part of this, Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine.”
