Hegset: Returning Ukraine to 2014 borders is an unrealistic goal, NATO membership is not the solution

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that Ukraine's return to its pre-2014 borders is not realistic and that the Donald Trump administration does not see Kiev's membership in NATO as part of the solution to the war caused by the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.

Speaking at a meeting of Ukraine's military allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Hegseth made the new US administration's most direct public statement yet on the nearly three-year-old war.

He also told Washington's NATO allies that they would have to take greater responsibility for Europe's security.

"We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that a return to the 2014 borders is an unrealistic goal," Hegseth told a meeting of more than 40 countries allied with Ukraine.

"Insisting on this illusion will only prolong the war and cause even more suffering," he added.

Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, and then supported pro-Russian separatists in an armed rebellion against Ukrainian forces in eastern Donbas.

Moscow currently controls about 20 percent of Ukraine's territory, mainly in the east and south of the country.

Hegseth said that any lasting peace must include "strong security guarantees to ensure that war does not flare up again."

However, he stressed that "the United States does not believe that Ukraine's membership in NATO is a realistic outcome of a negotiated solution."

Instead, security guarantees should be supported "by capable European and non-European troops," the Pentagon chief said.

"If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers in Ukraine at any time, they should be part of a non-NATO mission and should not be covered by Article 5," he said, referring to the Alliance's collective defense clause.