US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has spoken at a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels. He said it’s unlikely that Ukraine will return to its borders before 2014, when Russia took control of Crimea.
Hegseth told the meeting that a “durable peace” can only be established with a “realistic assessment of the battlefield”. This means acknowledging that Ukraine cannot get back all the land it lost to Russia. He also said that Ukraine joining Nato is not a likely outcome of any peace deal.
The US defence secretary ruled out deploying US troops to Ukraine under any future security arrangements. Instead, he suggested that European and non-European troops should be used as part of a non-Nato mission.
Hegseth’s comments were made at a meeting with more than 40 countries allied to Ukraine. He said the US wants a “sovereign and prosperous” Ukraine but believes that returning to pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic goal.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and currently controls around a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. Any peace deal would need to include “robust security guarantees” to prevent the war from starting again, Hegseth said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also spoken about potential peace talks with Russia. He wants his country to negotiate from a position of strength and is willing to give up land in exchange for Russian-occupied territory. However, he does not know which part of the land Ukraine would ask for.
Zelensky also said that US firms could be given lucrative contracts to rebuild Ukraine as part of any peace deal.
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