For the first time since the US created an international group to coordinate military aid to Ukraine three years ago, America’s Pentagon chief will not be in attendance when more than 50 other defense leaders meet Wednesday, June 4. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who returned from a national security conference in Singapore on Sunday, will not arrive in Brussels until Wednesday evening, after the Ukraine Defense Contact Group’s meeting is over.
It is the latest in a series of steps that the US has taken to distance itself from the Ukraine war effort. And it comes on the heels of French President Emmanuel Macron’s warning at the security conference last weekend that the US and others risk a dangerous double standard if their concentration on a potential conflict with China is done at the cost of abandoning Ukraine.
It being malicious seems like an obvious answer, but I seriously would not be surprised if it was a booking error or some sort of hubris that they’d wait for him.