Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that it is “unrealistic” to aim for a return to Ukraine’s borders as they were before 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists who took over swaths of the country’s east.
The remarks are the clearest indication yet that the United States will support negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in which Ukraine cedes territory that’s already been seized by the Kremlin.
“We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine,” Hegseth said in a speech during a trip to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. “But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective.”
“Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he told a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, at which Western allies discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion. “We will only end this devastating war — and establish a durable peace — by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.”
Hegseth’s remarks put meat on the bone of Trump’s radical departure from former President Joe Biden’s policy. Whereas Biden focused on all-out Ukrainian victory, Trump says he wants to end the war as quickly as possible.
The defense secretary is part of a high-level Trump team touring Europe this week, with allies eager to learn how this ambitious plan might come about. Many Ukrainians are hopeful of Trump’s ability to end the conflict; others fear his negotiations will force them to accept unfavorable terms and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hegseth sought to allay these fears by saying that “a durable peace for Ukraine must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war won’t begin again.”
However, these guarantees should not include giving Ukraine NATO membership, as it has long desired, but instead have non-American troops “deployed as peacekeepers” to the country, he said. These personnel should not be deployed as a NATO mission, or be covered by the alliance’s Article 5 guarantee, under which allies agree to step in if any member is attacked, he added.
“To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine,” he said.
Trump will seek to pressure the Kremlin by “unleashing American energy production” and thus throttling Russian exports that fund its war machine, Hegseth said. But he made clear that European nations would be required to provide most of the military support for Ukraine — which is currently underwritten by Washington more than any other nation.
He said he was in Brussels to “directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe,” he said. “The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland. We must — and we are — focusing on securing our own borders.”
