Summary

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth struggled to answer what Russia would concede in Ukraine peace talks, instead defending the Trump administration’s negotiations.

His comments at NATO suggested Ukraine would have to give up NATO membership and lost territory, sparking backlash. Critics, including John Bolton, argued the deal was Kremlin propaganda.

Hegseth later attempted to walk back his remarks, but experts said he had already ceded too much to Russia.

Trump’s denial of ordering a retraction failed to quell concerns over Hegseth’s inexperience and the administration’s approach.

  • troed
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    672 days ago

    Trump believes, wrongly, that without US support Ukraine is lost.

    The EU now takes over as the leader of the free world.

      • @coyootje
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        202 days ago

        Yeah, most leaders here are busy tooting their own horns and aren’t focused on bigger geopolitics stuff yet… Like ffs, here in NL all they elected a right wing government and, surprise surprise, they’re shit at their job. Can’t get legislation passed, constant infighting, unpopular policies (for part of our population at least, unfortunately we also have a lot of idiots that voted for this), the list goes on.

        I wish that Europe would step up more. The European Union is quite good at doing things bigger picture but they’re very slow and bureaucratic at times, could be nice if they improved a bit on that.

      • @[email protected]
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        23 hours ago

        The sad/funny part is that the nations that would be Russia’s next prime targets are also some of the smallest in Europe. So we’re already doing most of what we can do here in the Baltics, but we can’t give ALL our military equipment away, Putin would just come for us next and at this rate, I don’t know if Article 5 can be relied upon with Trump in charge of the US. Fuck, maybe he’ll give orders to the American troops in our bases to start sabotaging local equipment before a Russian attack, then tell 'em to start shooting their (former) allies. If something like that were to happen, I just hope that there are enough links in the chain of command with integrity, that would tell their superiors to fuck off.

    • @rayyy
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      81 day ago

      Yes! the EU will be the leader of the free world and China will take over as the most powerful nation. China already leaping into the vacuum left by the cancellation of USAID. Once lost those countries will never not be US allies again.