Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will skip this week's Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, the latest in a pattern of absences that now stretches back more than a year, as the Pentagon shifts its attention to the war in Iran and presses European allies to shoulder more of Ukraine's defense burden.
A defense official confirmed Tuesday that Hegseth will not attend the Wednesday gathering of roughly 50 nations that coordinate military support for Ukraine. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's policy chief, will join virtually in his place, The Hill reported.
The United Kingdom and Germany will co-lead the session. Hegseth handed leadership of the contact group to the U.K. after President Trump began his second term last year, a deliberate step that signaled Washington's intention to let Europeans run the show on their own continent's largest ground war since 1945.
Hegseth's no-show Wednesday is not a one-off. It is a frequent occurrence over the past year. He did not attend the group's in-person meeting at NATO headquarters in April 2025, opting instead to call in by phone. He did not participate in the following meetings in June or in February, either.
Colby attended the February session. His virtual appearance this week suggests the Pentagon still wants a seat at the table, just not the head of it.
The contact group was founded during the Biden administration by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Under Biden, the forum became the primary vehicle for organizing Western arms shipments to Kyiv. Under Trump, the emphasis has changed. The administration has expressed its desire that European allies take on the brunt of providing for their own defenses, a message Hegseth's repeated absences reinforce more loudly than any communiqué could.
That posture has drawn predictable criticism from corners of Washington that spent the last three years treating open-ended military aid as a moral imperative. But the Trump administration's position rests on a straightforward premise: Europe has the wealth, the industrial base, and the geographic interest to lead on Ukraine. American taxpayers should not be the permanent underwriters of a conflict on another continent when the United States faces its own security demands elsewhere.
The timing of Hegseth's absence lines up with a Pentagon consumed by events far from Eastern Europe. The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran began more than a month ago with an intense bombing campaign. Washington and Tehran are now halfway through a two-week ceasefire, though negotiations remain at an impasse.
Hegseth has been at the center of the administration's public messaging on that conflict. He recently rebuked a reporter who interrupted a Pentagon briefing on the Iran ceasefire, a moment that illustrated the intensity of the current operational tempo at the Defense Department.
Trump himself has railed against NATO allies for refusing to help the United States in its war in Iran, a grievance that adds context to the administration's willingness to let those same allies manage the Ukraine contact group without an American secretary of defense presiding over the room.
The logic is not complicated. When allied nations decline to share the burden in a theater where the U.S. is actively engaged, the administration sees little reason to keep carrying the load in a theater where those allies have the most at stake.
The Defense Secretary's approach to the Ukraine contact group fits a wider pattern of prioritization. Hegseth has focused his energy on internal Pentagon reforms and the Iran campaign rather than maintaining the rhythms of Biden-era multilateral coordination.
His leadership decisions have generated friction on multiple fronts. He blocked four Army officers from a general promotion list as the Pentagon pushed merit-based advancement, a move that signaled a willingness to challenge the military's internal culture.
On the procurement side, Hegseth has pursued structural changes to how the Defense Department does business, including targeting the SBA's 8(a) program as part of a broader overhaul effort.
None of this has gone uncontested. An Arizona Democrat filed impeachment articles against Hegseth over the Iran conflict, a gesture that says more about the opposition's priorities than about any realistic threat to the secretary's position.
The president's own posture on Ukraine has shifted over the course of his second term. Early on, Trump was skeptical of providing Ukraine with U.S. military support. He halted new lethal aid for Kyiv while honoring shipments of weapons and equipment that had been pledged under the Biden administration.
He later changed course, pressing Russia to reach a peace deal with Kyiv and saying Washington would help Europe send more weapons to the embattled country. That evolution, from skepticism to conditional engagement, tracks with an administration that views Ukraine support not as an end in itself but as leverage toward a negotiated settlement.
Hegseth's absence from the contact group does not mean the United States has abandoned Ukraine. Colby's virtual attendance keeps an American voice in the room. But the symbolism is unmistakable: the days when an American defense secretary personally chaired these sessions and set the agenda are over.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon also faces legal and institutional challenges at home, including a federal judge's order to restore full press access after accusations that the Defense Department defied an earlier ruling. Hegseth is managing a department under pressure from multiple directions simultaneously.
Critics will frame Hegseth's no-show as neglect. The administration would call it realism. For decades, American defense secretaries flew to every multilateral gathering, chaired every coalition, and footed most of the bill. The result was a Europe that spent too little on its own security and expected Washington to fill the gap indefinitely.
The contact group still meets. Fifty nations still coordinate. The U.K. and Germany still lead. The only thing missing is an American secretary of defense treating the forum as his personal obligation, and that absence is the point.
Politico first reported on Hegseth's decision to skip the meeting. The Pentagon confirmed it without offering a specific reason for the secretary's absence, leaving open whether the decision was driven by scheduling, the Iran ceasefire talks, or a broader strategic signal.
If European leaders want American attention on Ukraine, they might start by answering the phone when Washington asks for help in the Middle East. Alliances work both ways, or they don't work at all.