SecDef Hegseth says Ukraine will most likely not return to its pre-2014 borders during the Trump administration, which he said will not welcome Ukraine into the NATO alliance as part of a path to peace for the country that’s been partially occupied by the Russian military for 11 years.
Big picture: Russian invaders have seized about one-fifth of Ukraine, and their troops have dug in along a front line that spans much of the Black and Azov Sea coasts, including the port city of Mariupol. View the latest known battle lines via this map posted Tuesday afternoon by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
At least 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion three years ago, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in December. Kyiv says Russia has suffered 839,040 “combat losses” as of February 1.
The U.S. has provided about $66 billion in military assistance since 2022, along with another $28 billion or so in humanitarian and financial aid, for a total of about $94 billion to date. European allies, meanwhile, have allocated €125 billion (or about $129 billion) for aid to Ukraine as of December, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
“Stopping the fighting and reaching an enduring peace is a top priority” for Trump, Hegseth said during his first meeting of the now-UK-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which met Wednesday in Brussels. “We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield,” he said, adding, “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 warned his European colleagues and representatives from nearly 50 nations from around the world attending Wednesday’s meeting in Belgium. “Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he said.
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” said Trump’s Pentagon chief. “Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed to Ukraine as peacekeepers at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission and they should not be covered under Article 5.” And, he vowed, “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine.”
How will the Trump administration push for a negotiated settlement? By selling European nations U.S. energy, said Hegseth. “To further enable effective diplomacy and drive down energy prices that fund the Russian war machine, President Trump is unleashing American energy and encouraging other nations to do the same,” he said, though he did not elaborate at length—e.g., did he mean encouraging other nations to unleash U.S. energy, or countries to unleash their own energy? “Lower energy prices, coupled with more effective enforcement of energy sanctions will help bring Russia to the table,” he said.
Also: The U.S. will reduce its aid to Ukraine. European allies must now provide “the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine,” Hegseth instructed the Ukraine Defense Contact Group attendees. That, he said, is because the Trump administration is turning the U.S. military’s focus away from Europe and to its southern border with Mexico, as well as attempting to address the recent economic and military rise of China, which he said has the “capability and intent to threaten our homeland.”
“Members of this contact group must meet the moment,” said Hegseth. “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 then pressured allies to spend more on defense in the years ahead, telling European countries to spend 5% of their GDP on their militaries, as he said Poland has agreed to do.
“Together, we can establish a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and [the] Pacific [region], respectively,” Hegseth told his audience in Brussels. However, he warned, “the United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency. Rather, our relationship will prioritize empowering Europe to own responsibility for its own security.”
“Honesty will be our policy going forward; but only in the spirit of solidarity,” the U.S. defense chief said, pausing to glimpse attendees around the room as he ended his remarks.
How did the attendees respond? It’s not fully clear just yet. British Defense Minister John Healey thanked Hegseth for his input, but notably he did not back the Pentagon chief’s recommendation that Ukraine concede its invaded territory.
“Secretary Hegseth, we hear you,” said Healey. “We hear your commitment to NATO, to Article 5, to a sovereign Ukraine, and to your defense partnership with Europe. We also hear your concerns,” he said with a note of solemnity. “On stepping up for Ukraine, we are and we will. On stepping up for European security, we are and we will. And you’ve just spoken about peace through strength,” he continued.
“We are 50 nations strong here—all determined to put an end to Putin’s war, and to do so together,” Healey said, and added before the Pentagon cut his feed, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have work to do.”
Second opinion: “The United Kingdom deserves great credit for its strong and smart support for Ukraine following Putin’s unprovoked invasion,” said Brad Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank based in Washington. However, he added, “No other ally—no matter how capable—can fully replace the American leadership role in the UDCG.”
“American leadership of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group has made the group more effective in its vital mission of building a more effective coalition to help Kyiv defend itself and counter the worst invasion in Europe since World War II,” said Bowman. “United States international leadership, strength, and engagement help secure American interests. American isolationism makes us less secure,” he warned.
Related reading:
- “Middle school students hold walkout during Hegseth visit to US base in Germany,” Stars and Stripes reported Tuesday from Stuttgart; the Washington Post has similar coverage;
- And ICYMI: “Defense Secretary Hegseth booed and heckled by military families protesting DEI push,” NBC News reported Tuesday as well.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1947, the USS Cusk (SS-348) became the first submarine to launch a guided missile.
Around DOD
U.S. airstrikes killed 14 ISIS “operatives” on Feb. 1, U.S. Africa Command said Tuesday. The strikes, made “in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia,” targeted senior leaders of the ISIS-Somalia group in caves about 50 miles southeast of Bosaso, according to an AFRICOM release. The operation killed about 14 members of the group, including Ahmed Maeleninine, whom the release called “a key ISIS recruiter, financier, and external operations leader responsible for the deployment of jihadists into the United States and across Europe.”
Anduril aims to take over Army IVAS headset program. In what Breaking Defense called a “stunning twist to the long-running saga to deliver mixed-reality goggles to troops,” Microsoft announced plans to hand over the $22 billion Integrated Visual Augmentation System program, which has struggled with delays and development problems. If the government approves the deal, the eight-year-old defense-tech Anduril will handle future software and hardware development for IVAS while Microsoft recedes to the role of a back-end cloud provider. Read the companies’ announcement.
Trump 2.0
USAID watchdog fired after issuing warning about aid monitoring. On Monday, the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development issued a report warning that Trump administration efforts to gut the foreign-aid agency had drastically reduced the U.S. ability to monitor the flow of U.S. funds and equipment abroad. On Tuesday, Paul Martin was fired, CNN reported.
Fine print: Federal law requires Congress to be notified 30 days before an IG is fired. Trump had already fired more than a dozen inspectors general—some reports say as many as 17—since taking office less than a month ago; none of the required notifications have apparently been made.
Go deeper: Jack Goldsmith writes at Lawfare, “Trump probably acted lawfully, I think, because the notice requirement is probably unconstitutional. The real bite in the 2022 law, however, comes in the limitations it places on Trump’s power to replace the terminated IGs—limitations that I believe are constitutional. This aspect of the law will make it hard, but not impossible, for Trump to put loyalists atop the dozens of vacant IG offices around the executive branch.” Read, here.
Related reading: “How Much the U.S. Spent on Foreign Aid—and Where It Went,” via the Wall Street Journal, reporting Monday (gift link).
Commentary: Autocrats love purging civil servants—and that should probably alarm Americans, Harvard’s Steven Levitsky and the University of Toronto’s Lucan Way write in a Foreign Affairs piece published Monday entitled “The Path to American Authoritarianism.”
“One of the first moves undertaken by elected autocrats such as Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, [Hugo] Chávez in Venezuela, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey has been to purge professional civil servants from public agencies responsible for things such as investigating and prosecuting wrongdoing, regulating the media and the economy, and overseeing elections—and replace them with loyalists,” they write.
Their prediction: “U.S. democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration,” they write. “Americans will still be able to oppose the government, but opposition will be harder and riskier, leading many elites and citizens to decide that the fight is not worth it. A failure to resist, however, could pave the way for authoritarian entrenchment—with grave and enduring consequences for global democracy.” Read the rest, here.
The post The D Brief: Hegseth pans Kyiv’s ‘unrealistic objective’; Anti-ISIS airstrikes; USAID IG fired; ‘Stunning twist’ for Army headset; And a bit more. appeared first on Defense One.
