US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will attend the upcoming top-level Ukraine support planning conference at Ramstein on Friday, April 11, albeit virtually, after the White House initially said the Americans would not attend.
The meeting, officially called the Ukrainian Defense Coordination Group (UDCG) and commonly known as the Ramstein group, is a regular gathering of defense officials from Western nations to coordinate military aid and support for Ukraine initiated after Moscow’s 2022 invasion.
“Secretary Hegseth plans to virtually attend the UDCG on Friday, April 11,” the Pentagon official told AFP, on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive topics, on Tuesday without providing further details.
The update came after reports that Hegseth would boycott the meeting. He – both before and after his appointment as defense secretary – has said that money spent by the US to support Ukraine was, in his view, mostly wasted.
Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky said on Tuesday, upon meeting Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, that the upcoming Ramstein meeting would cover the provision of Patriot air defense systems, defense packages, and setting up European arms manufacturing in Ukraine, according to RBC Ukraine.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion, the UDCG, in 26 meetings to date, has allocated some $126 billion in security and military aid to Ukraine, with mostly NATO states collectively contributing slightly more than half of that, and the US providing the remainder.
European financial assistance that has been actually delivered to Ukraine is about two and a half times greater than the US’s, data compiled by the Kiel Research Institute said.
However, US President Donald Trump, since his return to office in January, has signaled a desire to roll back American presence in Europe and reduce Washington’s support for Ukraine.
The Pentagon is reportedly considering pulling out 10,000 US troops stationed in Eastern Europe, according to NBC News, citing six American and European officials briefed on the discussions.
The 10,000 troops would come from the 20,000 deployed to NATO’s eastern flank by former US President Joe Biden after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
As of November 2024, the US has more than 100,000 troops deployed in Europe, according to a BBC report at the time.