Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the Trump administration does not support NATO membership for Ukraine. Hegseth’s comments came during a meeting in Brussels on Ukrainian security.

President Donald Trump “intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table,” the Pentagon chief said, adding that Ukraine and the West should manage their expectations in light of battlefield realities.

While acknowledging that Ukraine would need security guarantees, Hegseth said that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.” Instead, he continued, any peacekeeping troops “should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission.”

Many analysts have argued that NATO’s post-Cold War expansion strained U.S.-Russia relations and contributed to Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022. Kiev has long sought NATO membership, and in 2008, Washington pushed for the alliance to declare that Ukraine would eventually join.

Hegseth also urged Europe to shoulder the burden of its own defense, both in Ukraine and across the continent, and he emphasized that the U.S. would focus on its own homeland and core interests.