Pentagon Chief: Questions of Nuclear Weapons for Ukraine Will Be Decided by Trump.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that he does not rule out the possibility of supplying nuclear weapons to Ukraine, and that the final decision lies with President Donald Trump.

He made this statement in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.

'I am not here to announce what is on the negotiating table and what is not. It is not my job. It is the president's job. He is the leader, he is the chief negotiator and dealmaker,' he said.

He added: 'Some of us are working to create certain conditions that could make an agreement more likely, and that is what I was trying to do here in the context of NATO.'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that Ukraine should be granted NATO membership or nuclear weapons as a security guarantee against future Russian invasion as part of a peace agreement. But Hegseth outlined some U.S. positions ahead of negotiations on Wednesday, including that NATO membership should not be offered to Ukraine.

He also stated that a return to Ukraine's borders from before 2014 is 'unrealistic', that American troops will not be deployed in Ukraine, and that European peacekeepers in Ukraine should not be part of a NATO mission that could trigger Article 5 and thus U.S. military intervention.

Hegseth's statements dashed some key hopes for Zelensky. On February 4, the Ukrainian president stated that his country should be offered NATO membership or nuclear weapons as a security guarantee against further Russian invasion. If NATO membership takes 'years' or 'decades', he said, 'then let them give us nuclear weapons.'

Hegseth's statements at the meeting with NATO allies and partners supporting Ukraine caused shock and dismay in Europe, which has firmly backed Ukraine in its war against Russia but has largely relied on U.S. leadership and financial and military support to keep Ukraine in the fight.

But Hegseth said that his statements should not be interpreted as red lines, but rather as a reality of the situation.

'I am not the one to announce red lines or not. I work with the president when we are working on these issues, but we felt it was helpful to just inject a little reality into the conversation,' he said. 'Ultimately, only President Trump will determine whether there is room for maneuver or change in any specific position.'

He said that his statements do not mean that Ukraine cannot join NATO in the future.

'This is just an acknowledgment that if we want to achieve peace negotiations, if we want a ceasefire, if we want opportunities for lasting peace, realistically, right now it is not the Time — just as a return to the 2014 borders is realistically not the time right now. This is not an absolute value statement.'

He said that Trump is a negotiator who lives 'in the real world.'

'You can talk about things in an ideal world or you can talk about things in a real world. And that is where President Trump is,' he said.

He said that the criticism that Trump's negotiations with Russia are a sign of weakness is 'simply incorrect and opposite in nature.'