Summary
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic,” signaling a shift in U.S. policy toward negotiated settlements.
Speaking at NATO headquarters, he argued that pursuing full territorial recovery would prolong the war and emphasized the need for security guarantees without NATO membership or U.S. troops in Ukraine.
Hegseth outlined Trump’s approach of reducing Russian war funding through increased U.S. energy production while shifting more military support responsibility to Europe.
Agreed! Ukraine should keep all that Russian land they conquered.
Unfortunately, there really isn’t that much of it, even if it royally pisses Moscow off.
Trump is all about shifting defense responsibility onto Europe but isn’t it the case that the US proactively claimed responsibility for defense of virtually every sphere where it has interests? We have the largest military in the world by FAR and bases everywhere, and have allowed others to spend less on defense because we want to be the ones with the big stick. It’s a little ironic for Trump to complain that everyone has allowed us to pursue this policy we have been driving for decades.
Lol sorry, every nation in Europe is a sovereign entity and is responsible for the safety of their citizens and the integrity of their borders.
Poland made the decision to arm itself and has been spending for years. Lack of investment in the military is fundamentally a national decision to divert money into other programs or tax cuts.
The US has been becoming less and less interested in the rules based order we built after WW2 for the last 20 years.
Many people have predicted this would happen. You have only yourselves to blame.
The problem is a HUGE part of our economy and the world economy depends on this spending. Musk and Trump are fucking morons who are actively destroying the US economy and strength.
I don’t like what you said but sadly it is true - we should have invested much more in the defence and start permanent sanctions on Russia since Chechnya war.
That doesn’t distract from the fact that Trump is a cunt working hand in hand with Putler.
I 100% agree.
For at least the next 4 years I would not count on the US honoring any security arrangements. Any intelligence shared with us is likely going to be passed to Russia.
I honestly wouldn’t have completely counted on the US before that either. Countries don’t have friends and they all only work for themselves.
While there are groups that are often going in the same direction, you can’t just count on others. Each deal is unique, and each treaty can be broken at any time. The US move when it’s in their interest to do so. But should their local political situation be tense, or if there’s nothing to gain, it’s much less obvious IMO. And of course, at the moment, it’s quite likely that most treaties will just be put to the shredder.
“Putin’s puppet administration says NATO should cede everything to Putin, news at 11.”
Trump knows the proxy war in Ukraine is lost. The Ukrainians had their civil war, and the whole time one side was receiving weapons from NATO and the other side was receiving weapons from Russia. In the end they were unable to come to a unifying agreement, despite multiple peace talks.
Finally, Russia intervened directly and the Ukrainian side receiving their support disappeared from the news. Since Russia invaded we’ve been given this narrative that Putin wants territory, but it’s that side in Ukraine’s civil war that is leading its people to join Russia. They felt that was the better deal and would rather have security than reunify with the other half.
Ukraine is only shrinking because the NATO-backed side started the civil war. These are the consequences of refusing to allow the democratic process to play out. The NATO-backed side lost an election and then initiated a coup in 2014, kickstarting the destruction of their country. Fuck around, find out.
If the war is already lost why do russian oil refineries keep exploding? If Russia is winning so hard why are frontline troops moving around in unarmored golf carts? Why does Ukraine still hold land in Russia? Where’d the best Koreans go? Why are we over 1,000 days into a 3 day SMO? Is putin bad at counting?
Oh great, another Putinbot spouting reams of misinformation.
Trying to clean up the whole mess from your firehose of bullshit is a fool’s errand, but here are a couple counterpoints for the benefit of anyone not already familiar with the relevant history:
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The war in Ukraine was not “civil.” It was being waged by Russian troops acting as “separatists,” a disguise so thin that the only ones to buy it were on Russian state TV.
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Every single escalation in the conflict was by Russia, ever since the hostile takeover of Crimea.
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The military strength of Russia compared to NATO is so ridiculously lopsided that the only way Russia could possibly “win” is if they’re able to sabotage NATO from the inside, for instance by manipulating foreign elections enough to put a Russian puppet in charge.
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Russia has been waging imperialistic wars against its neighbours since way before Ukraine.
It will also continue to do so, since it managed to fuck up its economy so bad it can’t get back from a war economy.
Also, if anything this would still be a NATO victory even if it’s not a total Ukrainian victory. Russian military stockpiles are fucked, Europe is bringing back NATO with new funding, better cooperation and key new members.
We’ve got NATO lake and the Moskva is still sunk. Wonder how long it will take to rebuild it. Sanctions are not going anywhere either.
Europe is having energy problems. Germany especially is seeing its manufacturing capacity decline due to high energy costs. Before Russia intervened directly and the US forced Europe to enact sanctions, they were receiving gas from Russia at a discount and they were paying in Euros. Now they buy expensive LNG from Norway and the USA. They’ve replaced cheap energy with expensive energy.
If NATO hadn’t backed the coup to kick off the Ukraine war, Germany’s car manufacturing would be growing into the EV market instead of shrinking and hobbled. Old allies can’t catch a break.
New NATO countries are finding out that the US can’t afford vassal states like it used to. The Trump administration expects each country to pay for NATO military expenditures. Military budgets are increasing, and countries are trading financial sense to be allies with a declining American empire.
Meanwhile Russia is part of BRICS, an economic bloc that includes more than half the world’s population. And what is Trump’s response? Trump wants to go to war against the biggest economic bloc in world history. Trying to fight half the world in an economic war sounds like a losing strategy if I’ve ever heard one.
BRICS delusion strikes again
By 2013, it was clear that Ukraine’s democratic facade was crumbling. […] The Party of Regions controlled the Cabinet, the Parliament (Verkhovna Rada), and most local councils. Its leading [financial-political groups] also controlled most of the courts, the police, the tax administration, and major state-owned industrial companies—in other words, the lion’s share of the economy.
Doesn’t look much like a healthy democracy to me.
And the 2014 coup being backed by Western powers appears to me to merely be a Kremlin talking point. Do you have any reliable source to backup that claim?
I’m surprised he can say anything with Putin’s dick that far down his throat.
Let me know how many ml comm bans you got for that one.
The problem is - while he might not be wrong, simply because it’s unlikely that Russia would accept a total territorial loss at the negotiation table - ceding anything to the Russian imperialists is an invitation to keep pushing.
The truth is that the US of course do not care about the Ukraine as a sovereign entity. They care only about maintaining their own geopolitical interests.
On the other hand do I doubt that Russia is interested in merely maintaining their territorial gains - maybe as a special zone of some sort - if that would mean that the Ukraine would pursue a proper membership in NATO.
So what we will likely see is that Russia will want to maintain or increase their presence in eastern Ukraine, maintain Crimea and want assurances that Ukraine will remain a neutral buffer state.
Leading to the Ukraine being screwed over either way.
It’s just “Ukraine”. “The Ukraine” implies that it’s a territory and not the name of an independent country.
Technically it’s both, given the etymology of the word. Just as you say ‘The United States of America’ or ‘The Republic of Congo’.
Except it’s not like that. “The Ukraine” is how it was referred to when it was part of Russia. “Ukraine” is correct.
You might want to look up the historic usage. And I don’t mean the slavic etymology nor soviet russia. It has been named both until the article became a politicized matter. So if you want to object to me accidentially implying I would not affirm the independence of Ukraine as a country, then I understand that.
I have looked it up. That’s why I’m correcting you.
The country changed it in 1991, which is the year they got their independence.
“Ukraine” means “borderland”. Adding “the” in front of it makes it descriptive: the borderland of a larger nation. Removing the “the” makes it a name, which it is, because it’s its own country.
I don’t correct people unless I’ve already looked it up. And I don’t continue the conversation without looking it up again. Just say “Ukraine”.
Given how you seem to need justifying your correction, I wonder what’s the point of it in the first place. I have used the term both with and without the article, obviously disregarding the political implications I am aware of.
Why would you disregard the political implications?
They care only about maintaining their own geopolitical interests.
That used to be the case. Now the US only cares about whatever Trump wants, AKA whatever Putin told him he wants.
Any time anyone says something like OP did, I imagine them in front of a whiteboard trying to explain to themselves how the US of today is the same US as last month.
Russia may want a pause of several years to allow Ukraine’s arms support relationships with the West to expire, whereupon it would attack again, this time informed by everything that went wrong in this recent war.
I dunno. Maybe? It’s just a thought.
They won’t expire, there is a literal brand new Rheinmetall factory in Ukraine.
Along with geopolitical interests, the US is interested in Ukraine’s natural resources.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/09/16/senator-lindsey-graham-ukraine-trillion-minerals/
If the US is not helping, they should fuck all the way off.
Damn the US sure seems impotent and weak these days if they can’t even restore boundaries from just ten years ago.
They just lost the cold war.
What was his BAC at the time?
1
At this point in his miserable attempt at a life, his alcohol has no blood…
Pete HegsethPutin tells NATO…Oh come on, if you’re going to shake UA down for 500B in rare earths the least you can do is a li’l reacharound while fucking them in the ass. Stay classy.
You’d think Zekensky would give him that amount in relation to the amount of land liberated.
What his opinion after he loosens up with a gallon of vodka or 2?
