“Unrealistic,” says Beit Higseth’s Bit Higseth, to return to Ukraine’s borders for Ukraine.
The US Defense Secretary, Beit Higseth, said that it is “unrealistic” to expect Ukraine to return to its borders before 2014, when Russia took control of the Crimea.
Speaking at a meeting of the Defense Communication Group in Ukraine in Brussels, Higseth said it would be possible to create a “solid peace” with a “realistic assessment of the battlefield”.
The US Secretary of Defense also reduced Ukraine’s suggestions to join NATO and ruled out the deployment of American forces to Ukraine under any future security arrangements.
Kyiv has repeatedly called for NATO membership and in the past rejected the assignment area as part of a peace deal.
“We want, like you, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine, said Higseth, who was appointed by the Minister of Defense after Donald Trump returned to the US presidency in January, told more than 40 countries allied with Ukraine.
“But we must start by realizing that returning to the borders of Ukraine before 2014 is an unrealistic goal.
“The pursuit of this imaginary goal will only lead to the prolongation of the war and cause more suffering.”
Russia joined the Crimea Peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, then supported the separatists supporting Russia in an armed rebellion against Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow is currently controlling about five Ukraine lands, especially in the east and south.
Higseth said that any solid peace should include “strong security guarantees to ensure that the war will not start again.”
However, he said, “The United States does not believe that NATO membership in Ukraine is a realistic result of the settlement of negotiation.”
Instead, security guarantees must support “European and non -European forces”.
He said, referring to the mutual defense item in the coalition: “If these forces are deployed as peace protection in Ukraine at any time, it should be published as part of a non -NATO mission and should not be covered under Article 5,” in reference to the mutual defense clause of the coalition.
Hegseth also told European NATO members that they would need to provide Assad’s share of future aid to Kiev, warning that Washington “will not tolerate an unbalanced relationship” with its allies.
“The protection of European security should be a necessity for European members in NATO,” Higseth said to hold a meeting of Ukraine supporters in Brussels. “Europe must provide the overwhelming share of fatal and non -deadly aid in Ukraine.”
The United States was the greatest arms resource for Ukraine.
But Trump was repeatedly criticizing US aid to Ukraine and said his priority was to end the war, which began to invade Russia on a large scale for Ukraine in February 2022.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Folodimir Zelinski said he was ready to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia, but he wanted his country to do from the “position of power.”
Talk to GuardianZelinski said that if Trump was able to transfer Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table, the Ukrainian president planned to offer a straight land to Russia, giving up Land Kiev in the Russian Corsc region since the launch of a sudden attack six months ago.
“We will switch one region to another,” he added, but added that he does not know any part of the land occupied by the Russian that Ukraine will demand in return.
“I don’t know, we will see. But all our lands are important, there is no priority,” he said.
He also said that he would provide us with profitable contracts to rebuild Ukraine, in a clear attempt to obtain Trump along with.
In November of last year, Zellinski and the American president spoke after Trump’s electoral victory.
Zelinski said he had a “construction exchange” with the then -elected president and that he was sure that the war with Russia would end soon “what he was again on another day that Trump would become a president.
But Trump’s opponents of Democrats accused him of being very close to Russian President Vladimir Putin and say his approaches to war is a surrender to Ukraine, which in turn endangers all Europe.
It is still unclear whether a diplomatic solution to the war can be reached will be acceptable to both sides.
