US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth will not attend a NATO-led meeting of more than 50 defence ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, an absence that will be seen as another sign of Washington pulling back from its support for Ukraine against Russia’s war.
For the first time since the US created an international group to coordinate military aid to Ukraine three years ago — following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 — a Pentagon chief will not be present at a meeting of the defence ministers.
Hegseth’s absence from the meeting of the NATO Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) was confirmed to Euronews by a spokesperson for the US Department of Defence, who cited scheduling issues.
The US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker will take his place. Hegseth is set to attend Thursday’s meeting of NATO defence ministers.
The UDCG was established by Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin, and more than 50 member nations have collectively provided Ukraine with some $126 billion (€111bn) in weapons and military assistance, including over $66.5bn (€58bn) from the US.
However, since US President Donald Trump took office in January, there have been no new announcements of US military or weapons aid to Ukraine.
Hegseth turned leadership of the UDCG over to Germany and the United Kingdom in February, and said that Washington would no longer play a role in the monthly meetings.
The NATO defence ministers are expected this week to finalise proposals to increase defence spending from 2% to 5% of GDP, ahead of the NATO leaders summit at the end of June in The Hague — with Trump is expected to attend.
The US president has called for the 5% target, a demand which has been backed up by NATO chief Mark Rutte. However, none of NATO’s 32 members — including the US — currently hit that level.
The 5% target is expected to be split into 3.5% of spending directly on defence, and 1.5% on “defence-related” aspects such as cyber warfare and critical infrastructure.
A NATO official told Euronews that “3.5% gives us equivalence with the US”.
What might constitute “defence-related spending” will have to be worked out, a source familiar with the issue said, with some NATO countries pushing for things such as “military mobility”, including road-building, to be considered part of such spending.
The timeline of when countries should meet the proposed 5% target will also be under discussion, the source said.
The planned rise in spending is in response to US demands that the burden of Europe’s security be handled by the continent.
Spotlight on Ukraine
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine will be one of the main issues at the NATO summit in The Hague, but it is expected to be very different to last year’s event in Washington, where Ukrainian Volodymyr President Zelenskyy was at the forefront of proceedings and Kyiv’s relationship with Washington was flourishing under the Biden administration.
Zelenskyy said this week that Ukraine had been invited to the NATO summit, but the nature of his country’s attendance remains to be seen, given that it is not a member.
Some sources told Euronews that there is broad consensus that Zelenskyy should be present at the summit
“It’ll be a PR disaster if he’s not there,” said one NATO official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Dutch king is expected to invite Zelenskyy to a dinner for NATO leaders on the opening night, according to another source.
On Monday, a second round of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in just over two weeks made no progress towards ending the conflict, officials said.
The discussions came a day after a string of astonishing long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against Kyiv.
NATO officials told Euronews that they were concerned about Russian advances, despite the Ukrainian army’s massive attacks on Russian targets in recent days.
“It was a stroke of genius what Ukraine has achieved over the last few days,” the NATO official said.
“We are all positive about it — they took out part of the capability to kill children and civilian infrastructure,” the official added.
But while Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb attack on Russia’s bomber fleet is regarded as a major setback to Moscow, it does not fundamentally change the situation on the ground.
More than 100 Ukrainian drones hit strategic Russian air bases over the weekend, destroying or damaging nearly a third of the country’s bombers, according to Kyiv.
“It doesn’t change the battlefield — the hard battlefield reality is that Russia is making progress square kilometre by square kilometre,” the NATO official said.
“And this operation as great as it was, is not stopping the fact that Russia is moving forward and Ukraine is going through a very hard time,” the official told Euronews. “The resounding success of Sunday can’t take away that fact.”