Washington will not send US soldiers to the country, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said

The administration of US President Donald Trump has no plans to send American soldiers to Ukraine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said, as Washington seeks to shift the burden of supporting Kiev onto its European allies.

Hegseth's statement on Tuesday comes as Keith Kellogg, the US presidential envoy tasked with ending the Ukraine conflict, is set to meet with European officials at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) on Friday to promote Trump's plan.

"At the Ukraine contact group and the NATO ministerial, we're going to have straight talk with our friends," Hegseth told reporters at a press conference in Germany.

"It ought to be those in the neighborhood investing the most in that collective and individual defense," he said, adding that Washington wants NATO states to spend more than 2% of GDP on defense. "We believe that needs to be higher. The president has said 5%."

Asked whether Washington would consider sending troops to Ukraine to track weapons shipments, the Pentagon chief was clear:

Since taking office, Trump has shifted toward an 'America First' policy, suspending most US foreign aid - including to Ukraine - and threatening tariffs on allied nations, accusing them of unfair trade practices.

He has also vowed to bring a swift end to the Ukraine conflict. Last month, Trump threatened to impose tighter sanctions on Russia if Moscow refuses to accept a deal.

Kellogg is expected to gauge the willingness of Washington's EU and NATO allies to deploy their own "deterrent forces to ensure that any peace settlement holds," Bloomberg reported on Monday.

Russia will consider any foreign forces deployed to Ukraine without a UN mandate as legitimate military targets, Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow's ambassador to the UN, warned on Monday.

While Moscow has stated that it is open to negotiations, it has rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire, arguing that it would only give Ukraine time to regroup and rearm. Any settlement must be permanent and legally binding to address the root causes of the conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

(RT.com)