Hegseth to skip Ramstein again, Elbridge Colby to represent Pentagon at meeting
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth will again miss this week's meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Politico reports.
"Instead, the Pentagon's policy chief Elbridge Colby will attend the virtual meeting just as he did for the last meeting in February," the publication's sources said on condition of anonymity.
Over the past year, Hegseth has attended these meetings only sporadically, indicating that the Trump administration has other priorities and is increasingly counting on Europe to take on the burden of supplying weapons to Kyiv.
On Wednesday, more than 50 defense ministers from countries that have expressed readiness to support Ukraine will meet online. The session will be chaired by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and UK Defense Secretary John Healey.
It is reported that the leader of NATO forces, American Gen. Alexus Grynkewich is unable to attend. But his deputy, U.K. Air Chief Marshal Sir Johnny Stringer, and the German Maj. Gen. Ulf Häussler, deputy commander of the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine, will log on to the meeting instead.
The Trump administration has told allies both publicly and in private talks that it is focusing its attention on homeland security and the Western Hemisphere, and expects Europe to provide for its own defense.
After coming to power, Trump also suspended new military aid for Kyiv, but continued deliveries of weapons and equipment that had been agreed earlier and provided under the Biden administration. At the same time, the United States continued sharing battlefield intelligence with Ukraine, and a new program was introduced allowing European allies to purchase U.S.-made weapons for delivery to Kyiv.
Ukraine's Priority Requirements List (PURL) became the main issue at meetings of the Ukraine Contact Group, and contracts worth billions of dollars for equipment supplies have already been concluded on its basis. However, Trump administration officials have begun warning countries that deliveries of U.S. weapons to Ukraine could be suspended in the coming months, as the Pentagon is prioritizing their use in the war in Iran.
However, a U.S. official and a European diplomat familiar with the PURL initiative said supplies are continuing unchanged.