“Ukraine belongs in NATO”
Mark Rutte, NATO's new secretary general, immediately lashed out hard at China and Russia. In addition, he also praised Ukraine.
China must stop providing military support to Russia, which Moscow then uses in its war with Ukraine. Mark Rutte stated forcefully. “China cannot continue to fuel the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II without affecting its interests and reputation,” Rutte said Tuesday during his first press conference at NATO headquarters. Indeed, according to the Dutchman, China has become a “decisive facilitator” of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.
“Ukraine belongs in NATO,” Dutch former prime minister Mark Rutte declared on his first working day as NATO's new secretary general. And support for Ukraine will certainly not be weakened.
“Without a strong and independent Ukraine, there can be no sustainable security in Europe. I know from personal experience that the conflict in Ukraine is not limited to the front lines,” he echoed. Rutte was referring to MH17, the passenger flight downed over Ukrainian territory in 2014. Russian separatist forces were blamed.
Besides, according to Rutte, each ally must decide for itself whether it wants to supply long-range weapons to Ukraine, but he stressed that Ukraine has the “right to defend itself” and Kiev can “legitimately” strike targets that are “on the territory of the aggressor.”
The Dutchman called support for Ukraine “an investment in our own security.” The cost of that support is “also much lower than the cost we would have to incur if we let Putin have his way,” he said.
In a speech to NATO ambassadors earlier Tuesday, Rutte reiterated the view expressed at the NATO summit in Washington in July that Ukraine is on an “irreversible path” to membership in the alliance. “I don't want to go into what paths to NATO membership are now, because there are so many possibilities and options here. Of course, it also very much depends on Ukrainian leadership,” the press conference later echoed.
(SR for Tagtik/Illustration picture: Picture by verboden stad for wikicommons licensed under the creative commons attribution 2.0 generic license)