Rutte sent a message to Putin ahead of the NATO summit and announced billion-dollar defense deals
Kyiv • UNN
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that at the summit in July, allies will announce new defense contracts and reaffirm support for Ukraine. He sent a message to Putin about the alliance's readiness to defend itself.
NATO allies will announce defense-related agreements worth tens of billions of dollars at a summit next month in Turkey, and will also underscore their commitment to defense spending targets and reaffirm their support for Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Thursday, sending a message to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, UNN reports citing Reuters.
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According to him, this meeting will send a clear message to Vladimir Putin that the 32-member alliance is ready to respond to any "unreasonable step against us."
In comments addressed directly to the Russian leader, Rutte said that Putin "is not afraid of commitments, he is afraid of their (our) implementation, and that is exactly what we are doing, Vladimir. We will defend ourselves."
Rutte spoke at the Atlantic Council policy research institute on the last day of his visit to Washington ahead of the July 7-8 summit in Ankara.
The summit will highlight that after years of underinvestment, allies are on a "trajectory" to reach the defense spending target agreed last year of 5% of GDP by 2035, Rutte said.
He continued that allies still need to increase defense industrial production on both sides of the Atlantic, overcome "fragmented national defense industries" in Europe, reduce bureaucracy in Washington, and stimulate innovation.
The prospects for achieving these goals are "numerous," and the summit will announce tens of billions of dollars in new defense-related contracts.
"The result is not only improved security. We are in the early stages of a defense-industrial revolution that will help our economies grow" and support hundreds of thousands of jobs, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend the summit, which will reaffirm NATO's support for Ukraine in its more than four-year struggle against Russian occupation forces.
"Our security is interconnected," Rutte said. "Ukraine has shown that Russia's aggression will not stop us."