Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, faced a Senate panel on Tuesday. Amidst a barrage of hostile legislators questioning him about sexual assault and excessive drinking in the workplace, he made false and misleading statements about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US relations with friends and allies, and US combat operations against ISIS.

He was also asked twice whether he was in favor of continued strong US support to Ukraine and twice avoided answering the question.

The full-length video of the Hegseth confirmation hearing is here:

Things Hegseth said that didn’t line up with the facts:

During questioning by Senator Rick Scott (D-Florida) Hegseth said that Russia’s 2014 military invasion and occupation of about 20% of Ukraine’s territory was a minor incident.

This is false.

Most of Hegseth’s comments during the four-hour hearing had little to do with Russia and Ukraine. But, during an answer to a Scott question about how US military recruiting might be improved, Hegseth said Trump’s election had placed a skilled commander-in-chief at the helm of American armed forces, which would convince more citizens to volunteer for service.

“Past is prologue. Our warfighters understand what kind of commander-in-chief they’re going to get in President Donald Trump. Someone who stands behind them. Someone who gives them clear missions. Someone who ends wars decisively. And the issue of Ukraine was mentioned [during previous questioning], and ensures new wars are not started. There was a minor incursion under Barack Obama into Crimea, followed by nothing under President Trump, followed by an all-out assault by Vladimir Putin into Ukraine under the Biden administration. That did not happen under Donald Trump.”

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In fact, Russia’s 2014 military takeover of the Crimea was not a “minor incursion” as Hegseth put it, but the most open and egregious military invasion of one European state by another, since World War II.

Russian forces surrounded Ukrainian military bases, took Ukrainian government officials and civil leaders hostage or just jailed them, and using a point-of-the-gun rigged election to install a pro-Russia “government” in Crimea.

The Russian takeover placed about 2.8 million Ukrainian citizens under the rule of a Kremlin-controlled government that used police-state tactics such as informers and mass arrests to repress dissent. Crackdowns particularly targeted a Muslim, Turkic-speaking, ethnic Tartar population numbering nearly 300,000 for persecution by Christian Slav officials.

Hegseth made no mention at all about Russia’s 2014 military invasion of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which sparked sometimes vicious fighting, the use of tanks, bombers and heavy artillery by both sides, or the three million local residents forced to flee their homes. Around four million Ukrainians came under Russian police-state authority. About 14,000 people died in the region from war-related causes from 2014-2021.

Most estimates say that around 3,000-5,000 Ukrainians died in Donbas during fighting taking place during Trump’s first term in office, from 2016-2020. The Trump administration’s main policy towards fighting in Donbas was to ignore it and, contrary to Hegseth’s claim, that administration made no attempt whatsoever to end the fighting.

During questioning by Senator Angus King (I-Maine), Hegseth told King that changes made by Trump in US military rules of engagement in Syria were responsible for the defeat of the Islamic militant/terrorist group ISIS.

This is by most measures wrong and not what happened.

Hegseth said: “When President Trump took control in the first term, ISIS was raging across Iraq, and as someone who spent a lot of time there, with other men and women who were invested in that mission, it was a very difficult moment to see the black flag of ISIS fly. And what President Trump did, is untied the hands of warfighters. That changed the rules of engagement, that untied the hands of warfighters, and that allowed them to complete their mission and crush ISIS.”

The Islamic fundamentalist and frequently terrorist group ISIS was at its apex of influence in 2014, running a caliphate-style government in portions of Iraq and Syria. International intervention led by the US, Russia, NATO states, and a Saudi Arabian-led coalition of Islamic states had all deployed against and engaged ISIS well before Trump came into office in 2017. US forces primarily used air and drone strikes and engaged in relatively little ground combat.

By the time Trump began his first term in office in 2017, fighting against ISIS in Iraq had nearly ended and operations in Syria were winding down. The highest-profile US military-related incident involving American forces operating against ISIS in Syria during the Trump administration took place in 2019, when a pair of air strikes called by US special forces ground operators mistakenly hit a Syrian refugee camp near the town Baghuz, killing 64 women and children.

The Pentagon in response to a New York Times article said the strikes were “legitimate self-defense,” proportional and that “appropriate steps were taken to rule out the presence of civilians.”

It seems at least possible that the freer rules of engagement given to US forces operating against ISIS by Trump, as described by Hegseth, could have contributed to the deaths of the civilian Syrians at Baghuz.

At minimum, by the time Trump’s team reached office in 2017, ISIS was badly damaged and was well on the way to total defeat. There is little evidence additional US military firepower unshackled by Trump and praised by Hegseth seriously changed that trajectory.

Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) expressed her concerns about foreign policy rhetoric advanced by Trump and Hegseth that America should come first would alienate allies, without which the US could not effectively counter challenges from China and Russia. Hegseth said the US is a strong and reliable ally, particularly under Trump’s leadership.

Actions by the first Trump administration contradict Hegseth’s claims.

Hegseth told Rosen: “Our friends in the world have had no better ally, our allies and partners have had no better friend than President Donald Trump, who’s reinvigorated a NATO alliance, who’s stood behind Israel in every way, in ways this administration has not.”

Hegseth’s claims about NATO are directly contradicted by NATO records. The Trump administration’s main focus during 2017-2021 was pressuring Western European members of the Atlantic alliance to spend more on defense. At the time Trump left office, in 2021, six of 25 NATO member states were meeting the goal of 2% or better defense spending relative to GDP. When Trump took office, four states met that goal.

During the subsequent Biden administration, largely in reaction to Russia’s main force invasion of Ukraine, that figure had shot up from six to 23 of 25 NATO member states meeting the 2% target. By any measure, Hegseth’s claim Trump’s foreign policy triggered NATO strength and resource commitments is wrong. In fact, it was the Kremlin invasion of Ukraine and, to the extent that it was a factor, the Biden administration’s international coalition building that reinvigorated NATO.

Hegseth’s claim that “our friends in the world have had no better ally,” is by most measures demonstrably false (although it perhaps begs the philosophical question of the definition of friendship). Be that as it may, The Trump administration’s record from 2017-2021 contains hard examples of friendly nations under attack, which America ignored or threw under the bus.

The Trump administration’s decision to negotiate directly with the Taliban in 2018 and exclude representatives of the US-supported Afghanistan government from those negotiations, was widely seen by pro-US Afghans – and other American allies – as a betrayal to Afghan democracy and evidence of the US quitting.

Some historians have drawn parallels between the US drawdown of troops and eventual Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, following the Trump-engineered US-Taliban peace deal, with the US abandonment of a US-supported regime in Vietnam in 1973.

The Trump administration’s decision not to offer Ukraine substantial military support from 2017 to 2021, as Russian troops occupied about 18% of Ukraine’s territory and a hot war was in progress between Ukrainian and Russia-supported forces in east Ukraine, is widely seen in Ukraine as policy driven by a Trump preference for closer relations with Moscow and authoritarian President Vladimir Putin at the expense of Ukrainian democracy, freedom, and national sovereignty. Ukraine’s strongest supporters during the 2017-2021 period were European states physically close to Russia, such as Lithuania, Poland and Georgia.

Questions about Ukraine dodged by Hegseth

Hegseth evaded direct questions about Ukraine and Russia at least twice by not even attempting to answer the question and choosing to stay silent while a Senator’s time for questions ran out.

Asked by Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) if he planned in the future to “stand behind Ukraine,” and if he (Hegseth) was aware of a Trump plan to end the war in Ukraine rapidly, Hegseth answered: “I will always give clear guidance, best guidance to the president of the United States on matters like that.” He did not answer Rosen’s follow-up question about whether making concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin would embolden China and Chinese President Xi Jinping and Rosen’s time for questions ran out.

Asked by Senator Angus King (I, Maine) whether Hegseth favors US abandonment of Ukraine, Hegseth responded: “Senator… that is, a Presidential-level policy decision and he’s [Trump] made it very clear that he would like to see an end to that conflict. We know who the aggressor is. We know who the good guy is. We would like to see it as advantageous for the Ukrainians as possible. But that war needs to come to an end.”

King said Beijing would consider US abandonment of Ukraine as a signal the Trump administration would not seriously oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and suggested the US must support Ukraine. Hegseth did not respond to King and time ran out for questions.