The whole of NATO,
including the United States, is “totally committed” to keeping
Ukraine in the fight against Russia’s invasion, alliance
Secretary General Mark Rutte told Reuters in an interview on
Wednesday.
Speaking at the end of a summit of NATO leaders in The
Hague, Rutte also said nobody in NATO was naive about Russia and
all alliance members “have more or less the same assessment” of
Moscow.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s more conciliatory stance
towards Russia in his efforts to bring an end to the war in
Ukraine has prompted questions about U.S. commitments to Kyiv.
“The whole of NATO, including the United States, is totally
committed to keep Ukraine in the fight, to make sure that if
there is a peace deal, that peace deal – or the ceasefire – will
be lasting, will be durable,” Rutte said.
He said the clear direction of travel was that Europeans
would be responsible for more of the military aid to Ukraine.
But he said the United States would still be “very much
involved with intelligence-sharing, with also practical military
support” including potentially air defence systems.
“I think there will still be a huge, big American
involvement,” Rutte said.
The Trump administration has also told Europeans that they
must take over primary responsibility for their own security,
rather than relying on the United States through NATO.
Rutte said this process would be possible as Europeans
had committed to spending more on defence, and it would be
“well-organised” to avoid any gaps that Russia could exploit.
“I’ve had these discussions in Washington over the last
couple of months,” he said.
“For years, the U.S. has said ‘we have to pivot more towards
Asia’. Now that the Europeans are stepping up, that also makes
it possible,” he said.
“You will see that what the U.S. is delivering to NATO in
terms of capabilities will gradually come down. But there’s also
total clarity from the U.S. that they don’t want any capability<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The whole of NATO,including the United States, is “totally committed” to keepingUkraine in the fight against Russia’s invasion, allianceSecretary General Mark Rutte told Reuters in an interview onWednesday.Speaking at the end of a summit of NATO leaders in TheHague, Rutte also said nobody in NATO was naive about Russia andall alliance members “have more or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n