{"id":152293,"date":"2025-06-05T15:23:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T15:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-nato-near-consensus-on-5-defence-spend-goal-trump-reportedly-sees-ukraines-airfield-raids-as-badass-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T15:23:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T15:23:01","slug":"ukraine-war-latest-nato-near-consensus-on-5-defence-spend-goal-trump-reportedly-sees-ukraines-airfield-raids-as-badass-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-nato-near-consensus-on-5-defence-spend-goal-trump-reportedly-sees-ukraines-airfield-raids-as-badass-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war latest: NATO 'near consensus' on 5% defence spend goal; Trump reportedly sees Ukraine's airfield raids as 'badass' – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s defence secretary, insists NATO members are nearing a consensus on spending 5% of GDP on defence and security. He has been speaking from a meeting of defence ministers in Brussels – follow live below.
Thursday 5 June 2025 16:17, UK
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
“We just concluded our last meeting before the NATO summit,” Mark Rutte starts by telling reporters.
“We agreed on an ambitious new set of capability targets and this is so important,” he says.
“These targets describe exactly what capabilities allies need to invest in over the coming years.”
Rutte says this includes air defences, fighter jets, tanks, drones, personnel and logistics.
“All of this is needed to keep our deterrence and defence strong and our people safe,” he adds.
We’re now hearing from NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte, who is speaking in Brussels.
He’s been at the meeting of the alliance’s defence ministers, which has seen US defence secretary Pete Hegseth call on allies to “step up”.
You can watch along in the live stream at the top of this page. We’ll also be providing live text updates.
We’re expecting the German chancellor to arrive at the White House for his first face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump shortly.
With onlookers wondering whether Friedrich Merz will leave smiling like Sir Keir Starmer or berated like Volodymyr Zelenskyy, our US correspondent Mark Stone<\/a> has suggested how Merz could help his chances of a positive meeting.
“They both play golf, I wonder whether Merz has brought his golf clubs with him,” he said, adding “genuinely, that helps.”
“These sorts of small things, they make a big difference.”
Stone said that he has been told Merz has not done any special preparation ahead of his trip to Washington, but he added “you can be sure that they will have watched and absorbed the previous encounters with Zelenskyy and Cyril Ramaphosa”.
The upcoming NATO summit will be a “very big meeting” with America’s commitment to the alliance set to be among the topics discussed, our security and defence analyst Michael Clarke<\/a> has said.
“This American commitment will be important with the Europeans really stepping up, that’s going to be a big issue,” he said.
“The future of Ukraine will also be a big issue.”
Clarke went on to describe the meeting – which will be held in The Hague at the end of this month – as “tough”, and added that Trump will “take the plaudits” for his push for greater defence spending.
“If they weren’t going to meet that, he [Trump] wasn’t even going to come and that would have actually been a sort of death knell of NATO for the American president not to turn up to a NATO summit of all the heads of state.”
Asked whether Trump and the US could step back from the alliance if they don’t get their own way, Clarke said “probably not altogether, but significantly, yes”.
“NATO is struggling to maintain its political consensus,” he added.
“What is going to happen? I think NATO will continue to exist, but it’s falling naturally into a northern and a southern group.”
Watch his full analysis in the video below.
Yalda Hakim<\/a><\/b>, our lead world news presenter, is interviewing Andrei Kelin today – the Russian ambassador to the UK.
You can watch it in full – along with analysis from London and Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett<\/a><\/b> – on this evening’s episode of The World<\/a><\/b> from 9pm on Sky News.
We’ll also bring you the best of the interview and video as we get it right here on this live page.
In the meantime, don’t forget Yalda Hakim also co-hosts The World podcast. Tap here<\/a><\/b> to listen and subscribe on your podcast app of choice.
Listen to the latest episode, about Ukraine’s daring drone raids on Russian airfields, below.
Sir Keir Starmer will be having a tete-a-tete with NATO chief Mark Rutte in London next week.
The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “You can expect the prime minister to raise how we can ensure all allies meet their stated pledges in support of our collective defence, to keep people safe.”
The spokesperson went on: “It is worth recognising the UK’s track record on spending and indeed our contribution to NATO, both in terms of our spending and our capabilities.”
Rutte is thought to be pushing for NATO members to commit to spending 3.5% of GDP on the military, with a further 1.5% on defence-related measures and security.
Starmer has so far only said he hopes to hit 3% on defence at some point in the next parliament, after hitting 2.5% by 2027.
The state administration building in Kherson has been destroyed, according to a picture shared by a local official.
Alexander Prokudin, who heads the military administration in the southern region, said they are “clarifying information” about any victims after an attack by Russia.
As Donald Trump prepares to welcome the German chancellor to the White House this afternoon, it’s not the only leader he will have spoken to today.
China’s President Xi Jinping has held a phone call with Trump, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua.
We still haven’t heard anything from the White House about the call, but our US correspondent Mark Stone<\/a> says it is the first official call between Trump and Xi Jinping since the US president returned to the Oval Office.
“We think they did speak between the period in between when he was elected and inaugurated,” he said.
“But certainly this is really important.”
A line to bring you coming out of that NATO meeting in Brussels.
Two European diplomats have told Reuters that defence ministers from the alliance approved a new hybrid strategy.
While exact details of that strategy are unclear, it comes after US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said allies must be “combat-ready” (see 6.49 post).
“We’re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to 5% defence spending across the alliance, which we think will happen,” he said.
Germany needs up to 60,000 more troops under new NATO targets, the country’s defence minister has said.
“We are stepping up to our responsibility as Europe’s largest economy,” Boris Pistorius said today.
The Bundeswehr, Germany’s armed forces, would have between 250,000 and 260,000 troops in that case, he added.
But recruiting tens of thousands of extra troops will be a big challenge for Berlin – and it will likely spark a debate on whether conscription should be reintroduced, 14 years after it was suspended.
The Bundeswehr has not yet met a target of 203,000 troops set in 2018.
Still, Pistorius warned the military currently could not absorb a bigger number of conscripts due to a lack of barracks and trainers.
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