{"id":238436,"date":"2025-02-14T00:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T00:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/14\/donald-trump-calls-for-russia-to-return-to-g7-as-european-defence-minister-warns-nato-of-darkest-times-since-ww2\/"},"modified":"2025-02-14T00:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T00:04:11","slug":"donald-trump-calls-for-russia-to-return-to-g7-as-european-defence-minister-warns-nato-of-darkest-times-since-ww2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/14\/donald-trump-calls-for-russia-to-return-to-g7-as-european-defence-minister-warns-nato-of-darkest-times-since-ww2\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump calls for Russia to return to G7 – as European defence minister warns NATO of ‘darkest times’ since WW2"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donald Trump has said he would love to have Russia return to the G7 group of advanced economies, and that expelling the country “was a mistake”.<\/p>\n

Russia<\/a><\/strong> had been a member of the club of industrialised nations, then known as the G8, until it was excluded following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it’s not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia,” the US president said at the White House.<\/p>\n

He also said that “high-level people from Russia” will attend the Munich Security Conference on Friday.<\/p>\n

“Russia is going to be there with our people. Ukraine is also invited,” the president added.<\/p>\n

Follow latest: Trump presidency updates<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

During a series of fast-paced announcements<\/strong><\/a>, including a series of US trade tariffs<\/a><\/strong>, he also said he wants to discuss reducing defence spending with Russia and China<\/a><\/strong>, halve domestic defence expenditure and support moves towards getting rid of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The US president had already announced on Wednesday that he and Vladimir Putin<\/a><\/strong> would start peace talks “immediately” to end the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

But much of Thursday’s focus on global defence and spending came after a fractious NATO<\/a><\/strong> meeting in Brussels.<\/p>\n

It has been an intense 24 hours of diplomacy in Brussels, during which:<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Ukraine’s president said his country must have a place at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong>The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Ukraine would be involved in peace talks “one way or another”.<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/strong>Donald Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated the US vow to focus its military might away from Europe – telling NATO allies: “Trump won’t allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker.”<\/p>\n

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Uncle Sam ‘won’t be Uncle Sucker’
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‘Make NATO great again’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr Hegseth told NATO allies that the US will not guarantee Europe’s security and pressured leaders to spend more on their militaries.<\/p>\n

He told reporters “we must make NATO great again” as he called on allies to do “far more for Europe’s defence”.<\/p>\n

In terms of military spending, as a proportion of a country’s GDP, the US defence secretary said: “2% is a start… but it’s not enough. Nor is 3%, nor is 4% – more like 5% – real investment, real urgency.”<\/p>\n

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Will NATO countries cough up 5% of GDP?<\/span>
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Sky News’ US correspondent Mark Stone<\/a><\/strong>, who was listening to Mr Hegseth’s comments, said “he represents one man, Donald Trump, and he speaks for him”.<\/p>\n

Stone points out that, whether people will like him or loathe him, he “is not a man who has experience in the forum he now finds himself in”.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:
Trump’s Putin call analysed<\/a>
Children injured in ‘suspected’ Munich attack<\/a>
Farage considering claim over NatWest debanking<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

‘Ukraine is just the first stage’<\/strong><\/p>\n

In response to the Trump administration’s shift in policy, a European defence minister warned the continent will see its “darkest times since the Second World War” as Russia seeks to rearm and regroup following any peace deal.<\/p>\n

Dovile Sakaliene, Lithuania’s<\/a><\/strong> defence minister, told reporters: “China and Russia are going to coordinate their actions and if we are not able to work together as a team for the democratic world, it is going to be the darkest times since the Second World War.<\/p>\n

“In a few years, we will be in a situation where Russia – with the speed that it’s developing its defence industry and its army – is going to move forward.”<\/p>\n

“We all understand that Ukraine<\/a><\/strong> is just the first stage currently of an imperial expansion of Russia.”<\/p>\n

She added that NATO partners have a stark choice – rebuild their armed forces and defence industries “swiftly and very significantly” or find themselves “in a very difficult situation to put it diplomatically”.<\/p>\n

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Senior politicians in Moscow crowed over the thawing of relations between Russia and the US after presidents Trump and Putin held a 90-minute phone call<\/strong><\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Dmitry Medvedev, a former president and current security official, mocked Europe’s role on the world stage and said the continent is “mad with jealousy and rage” and that “Europe’s time is over”.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Donald Trump has said he would love to have Russia return to the G7 group of advanced economies, and that expelling the country “was a mistake”. Russia had been a member of the club of industrialised nations, then known as the G8, until it was excluded following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/02\/768x432\/skynews-pete-hegseth-nato_6827808.jpg?20250213160256","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1187,109411,912,51,10890,2124,7410,3950,202,272,52,5219,8317],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238438,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238436\/revisions\/238438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}