“We are Russia’s next target”

BRUSSELS, December 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday asked allied countries to prepare for large-scale war conflicts, like the wars fought by “our grandfathers and great-grandfathers”, after insisting that the Atlantic alliance is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “next goal”.

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference, as part of his visit to Germany, the NATO leader reiterated the need to support security in Ukraine against a Russia which, beyond the neighboring country, “could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years.”

“With its war economy, Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years,” he said of the Russian war prospect.

According to Rutte, Moscow “brought the war back to Europe”, which is why the allies “must prepare for the scale of war that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers endured”, in a veiled reference to the world wars that devastated the continent in the first half of the 20th century.

NATO SHOULD STRENGTHEN AND SPEND HUGELY

The Allied Secretary General asked to “imagine” a context of war in which the conflict “reaches every home, every workplace” and in which Europe would be marked by “destruction, massive recruitment and millions of displaced people”.

As Berlin warns, this “terrible” scenario with “widespread suffering and extreme losses” can be avoided if NATO members respect their commitments, strengthen themselves militarily and support Ukraine so that it does not fall into the hands of Putin.

Throughout his speech, the NATO political chief stressed the need to strengthen Ukraine so that it can stop Russian troops. “Imagine for a moment that Putin gets what he wants. Ukraine under the heel of Russian occupation. His forces are lobbying against a longer border with NATO and a significantly higher risk of armed attack against us,” he argued.

Faced with this hypothetical scenario, NATO would be forced to make a “colossal shift” in its deterrence and defense posture, Rutte said, and would need to “significantly increase its military presence along the eastern flank” with an acceleration in military spending and defense production.

Thus, he explained, European allies “would miss the days when 3.5% of GDP allocated to basic defense was enough”. “This figure would increase enormously,” he explained, referring to a scenario in which allies would have to “act quickly” and make “painful decisions”.

This era would be marked by “emergency budgets, cuts in public spending, economic disruptions and even greater financial pressure”, warned the former Dutch Prime Minister, stressing that “the dark forces of oppression are advancing again”.

Rutte insisted that Europe must be “absolutely clear” that it will be “Russia’s next target” and that it “is already in danger”, after recalling the growing campaign of hybrid threats and sabotage faced by countries like Poland or the Baltics.

Faced with this, he asserted that “now is the time to act” to increase arms spending and production, while ensuring that Ukraine has everything it needs to defend itself.

At the time of negotiations to stop the war in Ukraine, he denounced that Putin “only plays the role of pacifist when it suits him” and estimated that the efforts of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, put the Russian leader to the test on his true intentions.

“He is the only one who can bring Putin to the negotiating table. So let’s test Putin. Let’s see if he really wants peace or if he prefers the massacre to continue,” he concluded of Trump’s negotiating initiatives.