Trump Hands Russia the Win

White House, Kremlin are on the same page regarding captured territory

Pete Hegseth revealed the nature of the peace deal the Trump White House will negotiate between Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy, in the US defense secretary’s first official overseas trip, meeting with European defense ministers in Brussels Wednesday. In his remarks, Hegseth essentially confirmed worst fears by Ukraine’s US supporters, about President Trump’s promised negotiations between the warring countries.

“We must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,” he said, per The Guardian.

What’s more, Putin will enter negotiations with Trump and Zelenskyy with the understanding that President Trump is ready to pull back US support, maybe even withdraw completely, from NATO.

Hegseth said, in a statement toned down from an advanced briefing to reporters that from now on, Europe will have to provide “the overwhelming share” of future military aid to Kyiv, and that he was “here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.”

The US defense secretary’s remarks came after Zelenskyy said in an interview with The Guardian that Ukraine could cede territory it controls in Russia’s Kursk Oblast in exchange for Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories -- a return to the pre-2014 map.

Any questions about which side the Trump White House will favor in negotiations were made clear by the Kremlin’s response to Zelenskyy’s offer to exchange held territories.

“This is impossible,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS state news agency, echoing Hegseth’s remarks (per The Kyiv Independent). “Russia has never discussed and will never discuss the topic of exchanging its territory.”

This came the day after teacher Marc Fogel, 63, returned to the US from Russia with special envoy Steve Witkoff. His release is part of an exchange in which Alexander Vinnik, 42, co-founder of BTC-e, a key cybercurrency platform used by cyber criminals for ransomware extortions, identity-theft schemes and narcotics distribution, will return to Russia from three years in a California prison, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Witkoff had spent three years in a Russian jail for allegedly entering the country with medical marijuana and was left behind from high-profile prisoner exchanges under the Biden administration. Malphine Fogel had lobbied Trump before his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania – the one at which a bullet grazed Trump’s right ear – for her son’s release.

“I feel like the luckiest man on Earth right now,” Witkoff said. “I will be forever indebted to President Trump, to Steve over there.”

Putin might have reason to show some gratitude, especially as Trump pulls back from NATO. But in remarks Tuesday about the prisoner exchange, Trump did not comment on whether he had directly spoken with Putin.

Lassa is founding editor of The Hustings, where he compiles and writes the center column.