Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that Ukraine becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is unrealistic and that the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine must end.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, President Vladimir Putin promised in part that Ukraine was going to become part of NATO, an intergovernmental transnational military alliance of 32 member states – 30 European and 2 North American – and of which Russia is not a member. 

“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement,” Hegseth said, according to CNN.

He stated that protection for Ukraine has to be supported by European troops and non-European troops.

“To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be US troops deployed to Ukraine,” he said. 

Hegseth made these remarks at a meeting in Brussels.

He also stated that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders, before Russia invaded, was unrealistic. 

During a recent interview with The Guardian, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if negotiations happened between Russia and Ukraine, he was willing to offer up territory. 

"We will swap one territory for another," Zelensky said, but didn't specify which land.