Rutte: Russia will not be able to intimidate NATO

NATO will not be intimidated by threats from Russia, the alliance will continue to support Ukraine, bloc Secretary General Mark Rutte said during his first visit to the base in Wiesbaden, Germany.

"The message is that we will continue to do everything necessary to make sure that he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) does not achieve his goals and Ukraine wins," Rutte said in a joint interview with Reuters and Der Hessische Rundfunk.

The Secretary General visited the American Clay Barracks base, where the headquarters of a new mission called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU) is located, which will gradually take over the coordination of Western military assistance to Kiev. It is considered as an opportunity to support Ukraine in the event of Donald Trump's victory in the US elections, the agency points out.

Reuters notes that there is also an American unit at the Wiesbaden base, which is responsible for long-range missiles that the United States is going to temporarily deploy in Germany from 2026. Putin stated that if the United States deployed missiles in Germany, important Russian facilities would be within their reach with a flight time of about ten minutes, so Moscow would consider itself free from the moratorium on the deployment of its weapons.

Rutte also stressed that NATO is "a defensive alliance, not an offensive one."

"We are not interested in seizing any part of any other country outside NATO territory," he said. According to him, the bloc is ready to confront any threat.

"We will never be intimidated by our opponents," he concluded.