Pete Hegseth to meet Nato counterparts in Brussels a day after US president said he accepted Russian objection to Kyiv joining military alliance

• Trump says he has spoken to Putin and agreed to negotiate Ukraine ceasefire

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth is set to meet dozens of his counterparts at a Nato meeting in Brussels, a day after the US president, Donald Trump, said he had spoken to Russia’s Vladimir Putin about negotiating an end to the war.

Trump said he had spoken for more than an hour with Putin and that the two men expect to meet in person in Saudi Arabia soon. He said he later spoke to Volodymyr Zelenskyy and denied that he was “freezing out” the Ukrainian president.