Pete Hegseth will not be in attendance when other Nato countries hold meeting about defence of Ukraine

A group of 57 countries , including all members of Nato, helping Ukraine meets today in Brussels for the latest round of coordination of how to best help Kyiv in its continuing fight against the Russian invasion.

The meeting comes a day after Ukraine detonated a massive underwater blast that “severely damaged” the base of pylons holding up the illegally built Kerch Bridge , which connects the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula of Ukraine to Russia. The signature project of Vladimir Putin was hit with the equivalent of more than a metric tonne of TNT, said Kyiv’s SBU security service, write Peter Beaumont and Artem Mazhulin.