Fox News host Shannon Bream confronted U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after Russian President Vladimir Putin planned to take a "victory lap" because the Kremlin believes President Donald Trump "abandoned Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday brushed off European complaints that President Trump’s surprise one-on-one talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin amounted to a betrayal of Ukraine and stood by his comments a day earlier that it was unrealistic for Kyiv to expect a peace deal to return all the land it had lost since Russia invaded nearly three years ago.

Following a weekend of Donald Trump administration officials taking extreme measures to avoid saying Russia is to blame for the war in Ukraine, the panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" took aim at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for mealy-mouthed side-stepping of the issue during an appearance on Fox News.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said it was "unrealistic" for Ukraine to attempt to get all of its territory back from Russia.

In all, it was a bruising, 72-hour crash course in the geopolitical realities of a job that critics complain Mr. Hegseth, a 44-year-old former National Guard infantryman and Fox News host, is unqualified to hold. Mr. Hegseth’s trip to Europe, his first overseas visit since being sworn in on Jan. 25, started off on an unusual note.

Two percent is a start, as President Trump has said, but it’s not enough, nor is 3%, nor is 4% — more like 5%,” the defense secretary said in a speech in Brussels.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday responded to global blowback to his comments this week that Ukraine should not expect to join NATO or return to it’s pre-2014 borders as President

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday pulled back some ... hours after President Donald Trump and Russian Vladimir Putin spoke by phone about a potential peace deal. Hegseth’s initial ...

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sent a message to NATO’s European members ... Also on Wednesday, Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Thursday that acknowledging Ukraine's borders would not go back to what they were in 2014 was "not a concession" to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but was a "recognition of the hard power realities on the ground".