Europe steps up to fund its own defense, provide security for Ukraine after Trump threats

Details of any peacekeeping force are still widely in flux, but some officials said to expect a targeted deterrence force aimed at protecting key infrastructure rather than a wide blockade of the front lines. 

The U.S. has insisted that it is Europe's responsibility to offer military resources to help Ukraine deter Russia from invading again once a ceasefire is reached. President Donald Trump has flirted with the idea of not protecting European nations under NATO's Article 5 if they refuse to meet their defense spending obligations under the treaty.

The new call for Europe's defense was a welcome development for NATO's eastern flank, where tiny nations have for years beaten out their larger European counterparts in defense spending as a percentage of their GDP. 

"We should not be panicking about [Trump statements]," said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliament's national security committee.

"Europeans need to think about what sort of troops to put in Ukraine," he told Fox News Digital. "Europeans need to hold most of [our security] now. We need to show good will. Next to good will, you need to show numbers. How many troops can we generate, what sort of troops can we generate, what support we're going to need from the U.S." 

"I'm not going to provide security guarantees beyond very much," Trump had said at his first Cabinet meeting on Feb. 26. "We're going to have Europe do that."

The United States - NATO's most militarily powerful member - wasn't invited to the Paris talks because European nations wanted to show that they are able to shoulder a large part of the job of safeguarding Ukraine once a truce is in effect, a French military official told the Associated Press.

But Jeglinskas said Europe should acquiesce to U.S. demands to pour more into its own defenses as it needs the U.S. for air defenses like the Patriot missile. 

"People who are complaining about the U.S. - there's an abundance of that in Europe - yeah, show me the alternative. There's nothing." 

Over the weekend, top Trump advisor Elon Musk posted on X that the U.S. "really should" leave NATO. "Doesn't make sense for America to pay for the defense of Europe," he wrote. 

"It's common sense, right," Trump told reporters of the NATO alliance last week. "If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them. No, I'm not going to defend them."

Jeglinskas said that in his meetings behind closed doors, U.S. officials have expressed America's commitment to Article 5 is "as strong as ever." 

"Sometimes Trump goes way over to get people to come to a position of reality," said Jonathan Bass, foreign affairs expert and Argent LNG CEO. "The fact that he went so far to what they considered crazy, [the Europeans] actually took him seriously and did what they needed to do."

Russian aggression that could extend beyond Ukraine, including potentially into Baltic States like Lithuania, "worries us," she said.

"That's why we are really pushing forward with our military capability plans, with our defense capacity-building, infrastructure and personnel and acquisitions, from weapons to ammo, building factories, defense industries."

Europe has offered Ukraine around $139 billion in aid since the start of the war, while the U.S. has offered around $128 billion. 

"This is a moment for Europe, and we are ready to step up," said European Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen last week. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.