PANAMA CITY — U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will call into the next gathering of countries meeting to support Ukraine’s self-defense, days after some U.S. and European officials were doubting that he would attend at all, according to a U.S. and a European defense official.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group is a summit of 50 countries that have met for the last three years to coordinate military aid for Kyiv.
Lloyd Austin, Hegseth’s predecessor, founded the group shortly after Russia’s 2022 invasion and chaired 25 meetings during the Biden administration. Since then, it’s raised more than $126 billion in security aid for Ukraine, around half of which has come from America.
Hegseth, like the Trump administration as a whole, has made arming Ukraine a lower priority while in office. He went to the group’s last meeting in February, but allowed Britain to chair it, the first time a U.S. secretary ceded that role.
While there, he urged Europe to take control of its own self-defense while previewing a less active role for America in protecting the continent.
The upcoming meeting will occur Friday in Brussels, chaired by Britain and Germany. European and American officials wondered whether Hegseth would join in the weeks prior, with some last week indicating he might skip it.
Even joining via teleconference is better than passing altogether, multiple European officials said. Still, they would have preferred him to attend in person and broadly remain unsure of America’s commitment to supporting Ukraine and European defense as a whole.
Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the head of European Command, will join the summit in person, though he will do so in his NATO role as Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Gen Curtis Buzzard, the head of a separate security assistance group for Ukraine, will also attend.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
Read the full article here
