NATO allies insist Ukraine and Europe must be in peace talks as Trump touts Putin meeting

BRUSSELS (AP) — Several NATO allies stressed on Thursday that Ukraine and Europe must not be cut out of any peace negotiations as U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied that the United States is betraying the war-ravaged country.

European governments are reeling after the Trump administration signaled that it is planning face-to-face talks with Russia on ending the Ukraine war without involving them, insisted that Kyiv should not join NATO, and said that it’s up to Europe to protect itself and Ukraine from whatever Russia might do next.

“There can be no negotiation about Ukraine without Ukraine. And Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks,” U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey told reporters at NATO headquarters, as the organization’s 32 defense ministers met for talks on Ukraine.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said: “For me, it’s clear … that Europe must be involved in the negotiations — and I think that’s very easy to understand,” particularly if Europe is ”supposed to play a central or the main role in the peace order.”

Europe “will have to live directly” with the consequences, he added.

Hegseth denied that the U.S. has betrayed Ukraine by launching negotiations about its future without Kyiv’s full involvement. After talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said on Wednesday he would “probably” meet in person with the Russian leader in the near term, possibly in Saudi Arabia.

“There is no betrayal there. There is a recognition that the whole world and the United States is invested and interested in peace. A negotiated peace,” Hegesth told reporters.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, expressed surprise that Hegseth and Trump had listed what appeared to be concessions to Russia even before talks have begun in earnest.

“We shouldn’t take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started, because it plays to Russia’s court,” she said. “Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started? It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”

Hegseth fired back later, saying in his first major news conference as defense secretary that “it’s just a cheap political point to say, oh, we’ve left all the negotiating cards off the table by recognizing some realities that exist on the ground.”

He said that neither Russia nor Ukraine will “get everything that they want” in negotiations to end the war.

Hegseth also warned that the war in Ukraine must “be a wakeup call” for NATO’s European allies to spend more on their own defense budgets.

Twenty-three of the 32 member countries were forecast to have met the organization’s guideline of spending 2% of gross domestic product on their national defense budgets last year, but a third still do not.

European countries, he said, must spend more on their own defense, otherwise the U.S. is forced to “be everywhere for everybody, all the time.”

Asked when the U.S. might raise its defense spending from 3.4% to the 5% Washington is demanding of other allies, Hegseth demurred, saying that “3.4% is a very robust investment, larger than most.”

But Hegseth's French counterpart, Sébastien Lecornu, described the wrangling over greater defense spending as “a false debate,” saying that governments and parliaments across Europe are already approving more weapons purchases and bigger military budgets while helping Ukraine stave off an invasion.

Lecornu warned that the future of NATO itself is now in question.

“To say that it’s the biggest and most robust alliance in history is true, historically speaking. But the real question is will that still be the case in 10 or 15 years,” he said, after the U.S. — by far NATO's biggest and most powerful member — signaled that its security priorities lie elsewhere, including in Asia.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who was chairing Thursday's meeting, said that whatever agreement is struck between Russia and Ukraine, it is crucial that the “peace deal is enduring, that Putin knows that this is the end, that he can never again try to capture a piece of Ukraine.”

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Lolita C. Baldor and Tara Copp in Washington and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.