BRUSSELS (AP) – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte said Thursday that Russia's victory over Ukraine will undermine the deterrence of the world's largest military alliance and that it will take trillions to rebuild its credibility. It warned that it could cost $1,000.
NATO is building up its military forces in the east with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to prevent Russia from expanding the war into the territory of any of NATO's 32 member states. are.
“If Ukraine loses, restoring deterrence to NATO members will come at a much higher price in terms of increased spending and increased industrial production than we are currently considering,” Rutte said. It's going to happen,” he said. .
“It's not going to cost billions of dollars more. It's going to cost trillions more,” he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Mr Rutte said Western countries supporting Ukraine needed to “intensify, not reduce” their support for the country, nearly three years after Russia's full-scale invasion began. .
“We have to change the trajectory of war,” Rutte said, adding that Western countries “cannot allow one country to invade and colonize another in the 21st century.” added.
“We’re beyond that era,” he said.
In Europe, there are growing fears that US President Donald Trump may try to end the war early by negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin on terms disadvantageous to Ukraine, but Prime Minister Rutte hastened to move things forward. seems cautious about moving forward.
“If the deal is bad, we will just see the Russian president high-fiving the leaders of North Korea, Iran and China, and we cannot accept that,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “That would be a huge geopolitical mistake.”
President Trump's new special envoy, Richard Grenell, criticized allies who say they want to continue the war but still refuse to increase defense spending in line with NATO guidelines. He said Americans think the Biden administration's refusal to meet with Putin is “outrageous.”
NATO leaders agreed that each member state should devote at least 2% of its gross domestic product to its military budget. The alliance expects 23 member states to reach that level this year, but nearly a third have yet to do so. Poland and Estonia spend the most on a GDP basis.
“We cannot ask Americans to expand the NATO umbrella when current members are not paying their fair share,” Grenell said. Within NATO, the United States spends most of its own money in dollar terms, and its allies rely on American military power for their defense.
“If we have leaders who are going to talk about more wars, we need to make sure that those leaders are spending the appropriate amount of money,” Grenell said. “We need to be able to avoid war. That means a credible threat from NATO.”
He also said former President Joe Biden was wrong to not talk to Putin, who was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court for the “illegal deportation” of children from Ukraine to Russia in 2023. insisted.
“You should be able to talk to people,” Grenell said. “Dialogue is a tactic and you cannot resolve problems peacefully unless you actually engage in dialogue,” he said.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski welcomed President Trump's recognition that Russia must be the first to move towards peace, but added: “This is not the Putin that President Trump knew in his first term.” he warned.
On Wednesday, President Trump threatened to impose harsh taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Russia unless a deal to end the war is reached, but his warnings likely will fall on deaf ears in the Kremlin. Russia's economy is already under pressure from numerous US and European sanctions.
Sikorsi warned that President Putin should not be placed at the center of the world stage regarding Ukraine.
“The president of the United States is the leader of the free world. Vladimir Putin is an outcast, indicted as a war criminal for stealing Ukrainian children,” Sikorski said.
“I would like to suggest that President Putin needs to win the summit. If he wins the summit early, it will elevate him beyond his importance and give him the wrong idea about this trajectory.” “I will give you that,” he told him.
