Pete Hegseth, speaking to defence ministers at a lunchtime meeting in Brussels, said Europe had to provide “the overwhelming share” of future military aid to Kyiv – and recognise that restoring Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders was unrealistic.

The Pentagon chief said 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”, though the language was notably toned down from a draft briefed in advance to the press.

That had said the US was no longer “the primary guarantor of security in Europe” and appeared to suggest a recasting of the 75-year-old Nato alliance, created after the second world war to protect western Europe from the Soviet bloc.

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