Meeting with Ukraine’s network of international backers in Belgium on Feb. 12, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned that retaking all territory that Ukraine has lost to Russia since 2014 is an unrealistic war goal and insisted that Europe must take on a greater share of the burden of supporting Ukraine.
“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” Hegseth said as he met with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
Ukraine’s borders have been in flux since early 2014, when the country’s president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, was driven from power. Yanukovych had been on friendly terms with the Russian government and had faced intense street demonstrations after rejecting an agreement to expand economic ties with the European Union in late 2013.
In February 2014, just days after Yanukovych fled Ukraine, Russian forces seized control over the Crimean Peninsula. Elsewhere in eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian secessionists sought to break from the post-Yanukovych Ukrainian government.
Russia and Ukraine have been in a direct full-scale conflict since February 2022, when Russian troops entered Ukraine in force. Since then, Russia has declared the annexation of four eastern Ukrainian provinces, and Russian forces continue to advance farther west.
With the third anniversary of the Russia–Ukraine war approaching, Hegseth said President Donald Trump’s focus remains on bringing the fighting to an end.
“He intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table,” Hegseth said.
Along with sharing doubts that Ukraine can reverse Russia’s post-2014 territorial gains, Hegseth pushed back on Ukraine’s calls to join NATO as part of a broader security guarantee to end the war.
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” he said.
Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty, the foundational document of the NATO alliance, stipulates that the various alliance members are to treat an attack on one member as an attack on the whole alliance and commit to assisting the member that was attacked.
Hegseth said Ukraine’s backers may provide the country with their own security guarantees but not under the umbrella of NATO.
“Any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. 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 Five,” he said.
Hegseth further insisted that Ukraine’s European backers must begin to provide the bulk of future lethal and non-lethal aid for the embattled country.
Looking beyond the Russia–Ukraine war specifically, Hegseth reiterated Trump’s calls for other NATO members to increase their contributions to the alliance’s collective military capabilities.
NATO currently has a goal for each member to commit 2 percent of its annual gross domestic product to its military, but Hegseth said the spending goal should be raised to 5 percent.
Speaking with international leaders on Feb. 12, Hegseth also warned that the United States must consider its own security concerns ahead of Europe’s.
“The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must and we are focusing on the security of our own borders,” he said. “We also face a peer competitor in the communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific.”
Ukraine’s international backers have speculated for months about continued U.S. support for Ukraine under Trump’s leadership.
Following Hegseth’s remarks on Feb. 12, British Defense Secretary John Healey acknowledged the Trump administration’s concerns about the ongoing war in Ukraine and Europe’s contributions to the war effort.
“We hear your commitment to NATO, to Article Five, to a sovereign Ukraine, and to your defense partnership with Europe. We also hear your concerns on stepping up for Ukraine. We are and we will. On stepping up for European security, we are and we will,” Healey said.
Although Trump has called for negotiations to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it’s not yet clear whether and to what degree U.S. support for Ukraine will continue as the fighting rages on.
