The head of NATO called to invest more in Defense and warned that if Russia defeats Ukraine, the price will grow: “It will be trillions”
NATO Secretary General Mark Ruttewarned Thursday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would undermine the deterrent force of the world’s largest military alliance and that restoring its credibility could cost trillions.
NATO has been building up its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to deter Moscow to expand its war to the territory of any of the 32 member countries of the organization.
“If Ukraine loses, then to restore deterrence to the rest of NATO again, it will be a much, much higher price than what we are contemplating right now in terms of increasing our spending and increasing our industrial production,” Rutte said.
“It won’t be additional billions; there will be additional billions”he said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Rutte insisted that Ukraine’s Western allies must “intensify and not reduce support” that they are providing to the country, almost three years after the full-scale invasion of Russia began.
“We have to change the trajectory of the war”Rutte said, adding that the West “cannot allow in the 21st century a country to invade another country and try to colonize it.”
“We are beyond those days,” he said.
Nervousness in Europe is growing over the possibility that US President Donald Trump may seek to quickly end the war in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on terms unfavorable to Ukraine, but Rutte appeared to have qualms about trying to make the things in a hurry.
“If we get a bad deal, it would only mean that we will see the president of Russia high-fiving the leaders of North Korea, Iran and China and we cannot accept that,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “That would be geopolitically a big, big mistake”.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski welcomed Trump’s recognition that it should be Russia that makes the first peace moves, but warned that “this is not the Putin that President Trump knew in his first term.” .
Trump threatened on Wednesday to impose heavy taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Moscow if a deal to end the war is not reached, but that warning will likely fall on deaf ears in the Kremlin. Russia’s economy is already besieged by a host of US and European sanctions.
Sikorski warned that Putin should not be put center stage over Ukraine.
“The president of the United States is the leader of the free world. Vladimir Putin is a pariah and war criminal accused of stealing Ukrainian children”Sikorski said.
“I suggest that Putin has to earn that summit, that if he gets it soon, it elevates him beyond his importance and gives him the wrong idea about the trajectory of this,” he said.
(with information from AP)
