The US secretary of defense has signalled a major shift in Washington’s approach to the war in Ukraine during his first meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies.
Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth was speaking on Wednesday at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, where he outlined a hardline pivot in US policy following four years of former US President Joe Biden, while maintaining that ending the conflict in Ukraine remained “a top priority”.
He spoke shortly before US Presdient Donald Trump announced he had held his first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin since taking office.
“Our message is clear: The bloodshed must stop and this war must end,” Hegseth said in an address to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which includes all 32 members of NATO as well as other backers of Kyiv.
However, he added, “We will only end this devastating war – and establish a durable peace – by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.”
That means, he continued, Ukraine must abandon its “illusionary goal” of a return to its pre-2014 borders, referring to the year when Russia seized the Ukrainian territories of Crimea and Donbas.
The war-torn country must prepare for a negotiated settlement with Russia, potentially backed by a non-NATO international force, Hegseth said.
He added that Ukraine’s long-sought membership in NATO – which Kyiv has called essential to its long-term security – was not “realistic”.
The statements were the clearest articulation yet of how the administration of US President Donald Trump would approach the war in Ukraine, which began with Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Trump has repeatedly promised to bring a speedy end to the conflict, which has stoked concerns that Kyiv could be pressured to accept hefty concessions, including the loss of its Russian-occupied territories.
The US president has also been a vocal critic of NATO, threatening US withdrawal while repeatedly calling on members of the bloc to increase their defence spending.
Reporting from Brussels, Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra said that attendees at Wednesday’s meeting had been anxiously awaiting for Hegseth to “provide some more details about the United States’s commitment to Ukraine in the coming weeks and months”.
However, “[It was] a departure from what NATO and the Europeans were looking forward to hearing from the Americans today,” he said.
“Hegseth has said very clearly today that from now onwards, the Europeans have to understand that given the stark geopolitical developments globally, the Americans won’t be primarily focused on Europe’s security,” Ahelbarra added.
“There are other challenges , and on top of that agenda is China’s growing economic and military clout globally, which the Americans would like to counter.”
Europeans must provide ‘overwhelming share’
As part of the wider US shift in policy, Hegseth said European countries “must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine”.
Over nearly three years, about 50 countries have collectively provided Ukraine with more than $126bn in weapons and military assistance. The US provided about $64bn of that under the Biden administration.
Hegseth also repeated Trump’s claim that NATO members must boost their defence spending, echoing a call to increase the allocation to 5 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), far beyond the 2 percent they had already committed to.
That rate is likely impossible for most countries to meet, Ahelbarra reported, given most European countries “are still struggling to get to 2 percent”.
The Pentagon chief also offered a new vision for Ukraine’s long-term security, which he said should not include Ukraine eventually joining NATO.
The Biden administration had supported in principle Ukraine joining the bloc if certain reforms were met, despite concerns that such a move could draw the alliance into a wider war.
Under Article Five of NATO, an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members and triggers a joint military response.
Hegseth said that “any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops”, not supported by Article 5 protections.
Any troop deployment in Ukraine, he added, must be “part of a non-NATO mission”.
“To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine,” he said.
Hegseth spoke shortly before Trump on Wednesday announced he had held his first call with Putin.
“As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the war with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump said in a social media post, adding that he was confident that negotiations to end the war would be successful.
The two leaders agreed to visit each other’s countires, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said on Wednesday he had held a “meaningful” call with Trump.
