Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday the U.S. did not want Ukraine to join NATO even before the Trump administration began changing the country's approach toward the Russia-Ukraine war.

"The U.S. never saw us in NATO, they just spoke about it. They really didn’t want us in NATO," Zelensky said at the Munich Security Conference.

He went on to say that if Ukraine is not able to join the actual alliance, "we’ll make NATO in Ukraine."

Ukraine's stated goals in the war had been a return to its 2014 borders and membership in NATO, but Trump officials have thrown cold water on those objectives, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth describing them as unrealistic this week before later

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