New US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that Washington would not deploy troops to Ukraine under any peace deal with Russia, and that Kiev's return to all its territory or its accession to NATO were not realistic goals.
Speaking at a NATO meeting in Brussels, Hegseth laid out President Donald Trump's red lines and demands , and called on Europe to step up support for Ukraine and increase defense spending.
"To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will be no US forces deployed to Ukraine," he added.
He considered that any peace process "must begin with the recognition that returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic goal," even though Washington, like Europe, wants "a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine."
"The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement," he continued.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly expressed his readiness to negotiate, provided that Ukraine complies with his demands: giving up four regions in the south and east of the country, in addition to the Crimean Peninsula , which Moscow annexed in 2014, and abandoning the idea of joining NATO. But these are conditions that Kiev considered unacceptable.
Message to Europeans
Pete Hegseth's two-day talks in Brussels are part of a series of visits to Europe by senior US officials, the most prominent of which will be a meeting with US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday during the Munich Security Conference .
Regarding support for Kiev and European defense spending, the US Secretary of Defense sent a strong message that Washington expects its allies to do more.
“Protecting European security must be an urgent imperative for European NATO members, and Europe must provide the bulk of future lethal and non-lethal assistance to Ukraine,” Hegseth said.
He also warned that Washington would not accept what it considered an "unbalanced" burden-sharing within NATO.
"The United States remains committed to the alliance and supports the defense partnership with Europe, but will no longer accept an unbalanced relationship that encourages dependency," he said.
Ukraine ready for swap with Russia
In the same context, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said - in an interview published on Tuesday - that Ukraine is ready to offer a land swap with Russia as part of possible peace negotiations to end the war that has been going on between them for about 3 years, which Moscow rejected and described as nonsense.
"We will exchange territory for territory," Zelensky said in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, adding that he could offer to hand over to Moscow the territory that Ukraine has controlled in the Kursk region for six months.
On the other hand, US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday - via his social media platform Truth Social - that Treasury Secretary Scott Besant will soon travel to Ukraine where he will meet with Zelensky.
Today, Zelensky announced that he had fruitful talks with the US Treasury Secretary, and that he had received a preliminary draft of a possible agreement on natural resources.
"This war must end and it will end quickly. Too much death and destruction. The United States has spent billions of dollars with little results," Trump wrote, without specifying the date or length of Besant's visit.
After announcing his quest to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, Trump confirmed - in an interview with Fox News on Monday - that Ukraine might become "Russian one day," demanding compensation for the assistance Washington has provided to Kiev so far.
He also explained that he had demanded from Kiev the equivalent of $500 billion in rare metals, especially metals used in electronics.