NATO officials were trying to put a brave face on it, but the reality at this week’s summit was hard to escape: US President Donald Trump kicked off bilateral negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the fate of Ukraine. In so doing, he bypassed US allies and doubled down on his ambivalence towards Ukraine's territorial integrity and path to NATO membership.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's foreign policy chief and an adamant Ukraine supporter, invoked history: “Appeasement will always fail,” she said. “It’s not good negotiation tactics if you just give away everything before the negotiations have even started.”
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte insisted that NATO defence ministers "knew for a couple of days that negotiations were imminent" and weren't caught off guard by Trump and Putin's phone call.
“This is a democratic alliance. You don’t always start with concurring positions," he added.
Hegseth kicks off NATO panic
The first bombshell landed on Wednesday, when US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told partners at a gathering in Brussels of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group that to achieve peace with Russia, Ukraine would need to abandon hopes of joining the alliance and territory that Russia or its separatist allies have taken since 2014.
"This must not be Minsk 3.0," he said.
As that was happening, those in the room appear to have been unaware that Trump was on the phone with Putin saying the same thing.
As recently as NATO's Washington Summit in July, the alliance committed itself to Ukraine's membership "when allies agree and conditions are met."
Now it's the biggest ally, the US, that is opposed. Rutte downgraded his once insistent "no talks about Ukraine without Ukraine” to a softer appeal that Ukraine be “closely involved.”
Hegseth was blunter at Thursday's joint news conference, condemning the “disingenuous motives” of the “legacy media” reporting that he and Trump had made concessions on behalf of Ukraine from the get-go.
“I reject that at its face. There is a reason negotiations are happening now right after President Trump was sworn in," he said. "Putin responds to strength."
Unity or realpolitik
For Hegseth, his position was simply stating reality. How much room European allies or Ukraine itself will have to shape that reality appears increasingly in doubt.
Not all European leaders were intent on denying the divisions. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told journalists he “regrets” that the US administration had made “concessions." Kallas said any deal that excludes European involvement would be a “dirty" one, adding the EU could help Ukraine continue to resist Russia if it rejects a US-brokered deal.
Given the fragmented European defence base, it would be difficult to make good on that without US support. This puts Ukraine, and the EU, in the difficult negotiating position of possibly taking whatever deal Trump offers.