A Russian victory over Ukraine would greatly undermine the power of Nato and its credibility would cost trillions to restore, the alliance’s secretary general has warned.
Mark Rutte insisted that Ukraine‘s Western backers must not scale back the support they are providing to the country, almost three years after Vladimir Putin’s invasion began.
Nato has been increasing its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment. This is to deter Moscow from expanding its war into the territory of any of the organization’s 32 member countries.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Rutte said: “If Ukraine loses then to restore the deterrence of the rest of Nato again, it will be a much, much higher price than what we are contemplating at this moment in terms of ramping up our spending and ramping up our industrial production.”
“It will not be billions extra; it will be trillions extra,” he added.
The military alliance’s leader insisted Nato must “change the trajectory of the war”, adding the West “cannot allow in the 21st century that one country invades another country and tries to colonise it.”
Anxiety in Europe is mounting that US President Donald Trump might seek to quickly end the war on terms that are unfavourable to Ukraine, but Rutte appeared wary about trying to do things in a hurry.
“If we got a bad deal, it would only mean that we will see the president of Russia high-fiving with the leaders from North Korea, Iran and China and we cannot accept that,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “That would be geopolitically a big, big mistake.”
Leaders of Nato nations have agreed that each member country should spend at least 2 per cent of gross domestic product on their military budgets.
The alliance estimates that 23 members will reach that level this year, although almost a third will still fall short. Poland and Estonia spend most in GDP terms.
On Wednesday, President Trump threatened to impose stiff taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Moscow if an agreement isn’t reached to end the war. Russia’s economy is already weighed down by a multitude of US and European sanctions.
Mr Trump said he would be doing a very big favour to Russia and Putin by getting them to bring an end to “this ridiculous war”. Earlier this week, he said the conflict, which is nearing the end of its third year, was “destroying” Russia.
The Kremlin said it saw nothing particularly new with the threat of US sanctions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Trump had often applied sanctions against Russia in his first term as president. Mr Peskov reiterated that Russia was ready for an equal and mutually respectful dialogue with the US.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report
