NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte believes that the main goal of the security guarantees to take effect after a ceasefire is to increase the cost for Russia of a possible new attack on Ukraine. He made the statement at a press conference in Kyiv, according to European Pravda, as reported by the PromPolitInform portal.
The Secretary General declined to comment in detail on a Financial Times publication regarding agreed principles for guaranteeing Ukraine’s security, although he acknowledged that he had read the report.
However, he confirmed that current agreements refer to “security guarantees consisting of three levels.”
According to him, the first level of guarantees is a “strengthened Ukrainian army,” which will be supported by partner funding.
“It will obviously be the first line of defense if the Russians decide to attack Ukraine again. And we all feel an obligation to ensure that the Ukrainian military is ready to defend itself,” the NATO Secretary General stated.
The second level, Rutte noted, is the “coalition of the willing,” “assembled by the French and the British.” He refrained from specifying how it would act in the event of an attack, saying only that the coalition’s goal is not only to ensure that Ukraine’s military has everything it needs, “but also to guarantee other steps.”
“And the third level is the United States, which said last summer that it wanted to join,” the Secretary General concluded.
All three levels together should provide a degree of deterrence strong enough to ensure that “there will never again be a new Russian attack.”
“I will not comment on the Financial Times information beyond confirming that this was precisely the goal — to make the security guarantees so strong that a new attack would be a very bad decision for Russia,” he summed up.
As previously reported, the publication described how Ukraine’s allies would ensure the ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the United States has urged allies to rethink NATO.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Ukraine on Tuesday, where he stated that he would secure more than $15 billion for the purchase of weapons for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
