NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that if Kyiv is defeated in the continued conflict in Ukraine, “the restoration of the restraining potential of the alliance will cost trillions,” and urged member states to increase defense costs.
Rutt at the 55th World Economic Forum (VEF) in the Swiss Davos appreciated NATO expenditure and conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
noting the need to continue to support Kyiv Rutta said: “We must change the trajectory of an ongoing war. As far as we know, the front line is moving in the wrong direction of the east to the west”
According to Rutte, the defeat of Ukraine will turn into a much greater burden for the Alliance.
“If Ukraine loses this war, the restoration of the restraining alliance potential will cost not billions, but trillion,” said the Secretary General.
Rutte called on NATO member countries to “increase expenses” to the defense industry now in order to avoid large costs in the future.
According to RTET, the conflict in Ukraine is “not only a European problem, but also a global geopolitical struggle covering such countries as China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.”
“We cannot allow one country to invade another in the 21st century and try to colonize it. Those times remained in the past,” the Secretary General added.
Rutte again expressed the determination to include Kyiv in the Alliance in the future and emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has no right to veto the entry of any country.”
The world in Ukraine should be “sustainable”
Rutte said that any future peace agreement should be “sustainable”.
“We must be sure that Putin will never, under any circumstances, will no longer try to capture even the square kilometer of the territory of Ukraine,” he said.