U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has clearly outlined the three concrete conditions agreed upon by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to initiate negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine: no NATO membership for Ukraine—a demand Russia has made since the Munich Conference of 2007, when Putin explicitly stated that this would be an unbreachable red line. No presence of American troops in Ukraine. No application of NATO’s Article 5 and no NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. The latter two conditions seem self-evident, considering that the war erupted precisely to prevent the presence of NATO forces on Ukrainian territory.
Continue reading The War Is Lost—Now Europe Pays the Price
