Brussels, Feb 13: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and in sweeping remarks suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia and instead prepare for a negotiated peace settlement to be backed up by international troops.Hegseth’s strident comments came during the first trip to NATO by a member of the new Trump administration. Allies have been waiting to hear how much continued military and financial support Washington intends to provide to the Ukrainian government.
What they heard was that President Donald Trump is intent on getting Europe to assume most of the financial and military responsibilities for the defence of Ukraine, including a possible peacekeeping force that would not include US troops.
Hegseth said the force should not have Article Five protections, which could require the US or the 31 other nations of the NATO alliance to come to the aid of those forces if they end up in contact with Russian forces.
Hegseth’s stark message, and his insistence that Russia should keep some territory that Ukraine wants back, is likely to complicate talks later this week between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US Vice President JD Vance and other senior American officials at a major security security conference in Munich.
“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth said, as Kyiv’s backers gathered at NATO headquarters for a meeting to drum up more arms and ammunition for the war, which will soon enter its fourth year.
All 32 allies must agree for a country to join NATO, meaning that every member has a veto.
“Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops,” Hegseth said. “To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine.”
Hegseth insisted that NATO should play no role in any future military mission to police the peace in Ukraine and that any peacekeeping troops should not be covered by the part of NATO’s founding treaty that obliges all allies to come to the aid of any member under attack.
Article Five has been activated only once, when European allies and Canada used the collective security guarantee to help the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington.