Pentagon chief to miss Ramstein for first time in three years

09:32, 04.06.2025 1 min read

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will miss a meeting of an international group to coordinate military assistance to Ukraine for the first time in three years, the Associated Press reports.

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who returned from Singapore on Sunday from a national security conference, will arrive in Brussels only on Wednesday evening, after the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group ends.

A US official confirmed on condition of anonymity that Hegseth will not participate, including via video link.

As the AP writes, this is the latest in a series of steps the United States has taken to distance itself from the war in Ukraine. And it followed a warning from French President Emmanuel Macron that the United States and others risked dangerous double standards if their focus on a potential conflict with China came at the expense of abandoning Ukraine.