US defense minister Hegseth virtually takes part in Ukraine meeting

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CNN reports that the most important allies in Ukraine gather for a meeting in Brussels on Friday. What is noticeable is the lack of US defense minister pete hegseth participates.

Ukraine Defense Contact Group: An important forum

The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, founded by the former US defense minister Lloyd Austin during the bid administration, comprises around 50 nations that meet regularly to meet military support for The Ukraine . This is the first time that a US defense minister has not personally participated in the meeting since the group was founded in 2022. This coincides with a number of political changes under the Trump administration, which are interpreted as an approximation to Moscow.

negotiations in St. Petersburg

A high-ranking Trump official, Steve Witkoff, arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday to lead negotiations with Russia, as the Kremlin reported. According to the Russian state media, Witkoff is expected to meet the Russian President Vladimir Putin later on Friday, while the spokesman for the Kremlin refuses to comment on possible meetings.

Brussels meeting under new leadership

In Brussels, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group is headed for the second time by British Defense Minister John Healey and the German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Pistorius commented in the run-up to the meeting that the decision of the Trump administration to participate virtually, was not "his matter" and that he could therefore say nothing about the signal that this sends.

results of the conversations and support for Ukraine

In the run -up to the meeting in Brussels, Healey expressed strong support for Ukraine and appealed to "put even more pressure on Putin". "Our commitment is to put Ukraine into the strongest position to protect its sovereignty and block future Russian aggression," said Healey in a statement.

Germany will provide Ukraine a further 11 billion euros ($ 12.5 billion) of military support by 2029, including IRIS-T mobile air defense systems and Patriot rockets, the Ukrainian Minister of Defense said on Friday from Brussels. The United Kingdom and Norway will jointly provide an additional $ 589 million of military aid to finance the maintenance of vehicles and hundreds of thousands of drones.

air defense in the focus of Ukraine

The securing of airspace is priority for Kiev, emphasized the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj in the run -up to the meeting. "We have to fix the lack of air defense systems to strengthen our protection of heaven," said Selenskyj. "Our partners can help and accelerate the implementation of all previous agreements. Patriots, who are unused in storage rooms of our partners, should protect lives."

Russian offensive and rising civilian number of victims

Selenskyj warned at the beginning of this week that Russia "prepared" a new offensive, while CNN reported that The Russian army has strengthened the operations on the front in the past few weeks. The Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi informed the Ukrainian media on Thursday that Russia has already started his new offensive against the Sumy and Charkiw regions.

Meanwhile, a UN report , in which it is stated that Ukraine had a significant increase in civilian victims through Russian attacks in March. The number of civilian victims was 50 % higher compared to the previous month, with at least 164 deaths and 910 injured in March, as the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission announced in Ukraine.

Reporter Anna Chernova, Svitlana Vlasova, Clare Sebastian and Catherine Nicholls from CNN contributed to this report.