Hegseth says NATO membership for Ukraine is unrealistic, confirms stance on U.S. troop deployment

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1 week ago

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth talks about Ukraine and says Nato membership is unrealistic. He also confirms that American troops will not be deployed there either. A report on CBS News talked about it in more detail:

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia must include security guarantees for Ukraine, but that they "should not be provided through NATO membership, but must instead be backed by capable European and non-European troops."

The defense chief spoke not long before President Trump announced in a social media post that he had agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, during a phone call with the Russian leader on Wednesday. He said he would be calling Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately "to inform him of the conversation."

In remarks delivered ahead of a closed-door meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group to discuss further aid for Ukraine, Hegseth called Ukraine's goal of returning to its pre-2014 borders — before Russian forces first invaded and started seizing ground, annexing the Crimean Peninsula — an "unrealistic objective."