Nato countries’ pledge to spend 5% of their economic output on defence is Donald Trump’s “biggest foreign policy success,” the alliance’s chief has said.
In an interview with the BBC, Mark Rutte said it was thanks to Donald Trump that Nato was “stronger than it ever was”, adding that Trump “is good news for collective defence, for Nato and for Ukraine”.
The US leader has harshly criticised European allies for spending very little on defence – even threatening to withdraw US protection if they fail to do so.
The Nato chief has warned that Russia could attack allies within the next five years. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin dismissed such talk as “hysteria” on Wednesday.
“I’ve said it repeatedly – it’s a lie, nonsense, pure nonsense, about some imaginary Russian threat to European countries,” Putin told defence officials in Moscow.
After Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Russia had already annexed Crimea in 2014.
It now occupies most of Luhansk, and is understood to demand Ukraine’s withdrawal from all of Donetsk, too, even though Ukraine still controls up to 23% of the eastern region.
Putin said the goals of what he calls “the special military operation” would be achieved.
He said he preferred to do it through diplomacy, before warning that, “if the opposing side and their foreign patrons refuse to engage in substantive discussions, Russia will achieve the liberation of its historical lands by military means”.
In his interview with the BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, the Nato secretary general said it was “insane” that Putin’s pursuit of his “historical idea that you want to regain access to Ukraine” – or over the entire territory that used to constitute the former Soviet Union – had caused the death or serious injury to 1.1m of his people.
Mark Rutte praised Trump’s efforts to find an end to the war.
US envoys have been conducting intense negotiations with Ukrainian officials over a Trump-proposed peace plan whose initial draft was seen as favouring Russia.
It envisages ceding control of territory in the east of the country to Russia, as well as security guarantees for Kyiv to forestall future Russian aggression.
US officials say Washington is ready to offer Ukraine guarantees modelled on Nato’s Article 5 clause of mutual protection.
The Nato chief told the BBC that “Russia will see that, with the security guarantees in place, he should never ever try again to attack Ukraine because our reaction will be devastating and that’s exactly what we are now discussing”.
European allies who met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday in the German capital, Berlin, said a European-led force was also envisaged to “assist in the regeneration of Ukraine’s forces, in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.
Putin has opposed any such ideas.
He has also warned that Russia does not seek conflict with Europe, but is ready “right now” if Europe wants to – or starts a war.
Similar reassurances were given by Moscow in 2022, just before 200,000 Russian troops crossed the border and invaded Ukraine.
The war is nearing its fourth anniversary and Kyiv’s European allies have been discussing increasing economic pressure on Moscow to stop the war.
For months, EU leaders have grappled with the idea of using Russian assets frozen days after the start of the invasion to finance Ukraine’s military and economic needs. The controversial issue is on the agenda of Thursday’s summit in Brussels.
On the eve of the talks, Zelensky urged EU leaders to show courage.
“The outcome of these meetings – the outcome for Europe – must be such that Russia feels that its desire to continue fighting next year will be pointless, because Ukraine will have support,” the Ukrainian president said.
Russia’s economy has been on a war footing for more than three years now – its factories churn out ever more supplies of drones, missiles and artillery shells.
According to a recent report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Russia has been producing each month around 150 tanks, 550 infantry fighting vehicles, 120 Lancet drones and more than 50 artillery pieces.
The UK, and most of its Western allies, are not anywhere near this point.
Analysts say it would take years for Western Europe’s factories to come close to matching Russia’s mass-production of weapons.
France and Germany have both recently moved to revive a system of voluntary military service for 18-year-olds.
Nato includes 30 European countries – as well as Canada and the US, the alliance’s most powerful military member.
Under pressure from Trump, its members pledged during their summit in The Hague in June to increase military spending to 5% of their gross domestic product by 2035 – because of “long-term threat posed by Russia” and terrorism, among others.
“Now we are stronger, but if we do not implement the Hague decisions, we would be weaker than the Russians in a couple of years and that is extremely dangerous,” Mark Rutte said in his BBC interview.
