The NATO Chief says that Alliance still strongly supports Ukraine even when Trump goes back

Hague, Netherlands, NATO general secretary, Mark Rutte, on Monday, described Russia “the most significant and serious threat facing this alliance”, an evaluation that could cause friction with the largest member nation of the group, currently led by a president who usually defends the dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

This week of this week of the North Atlantic Treaty organization was shortened to a social dinner organized by the King of the Netherlands on Tuesday night, and then a two -hour business meeting on Wednesday as a way of minimizing the interruptions that Donald Trump can cause, NATO analysts said.

Rutte, however, tried to assure the other 31 member countries that is still focused on Russia’s “war of aggression” against his neighbor, Ukraine. For a question by a Ukrainian journalist, he said that the joint statement at the end of the summit, contrary to the reports, will support that country.

“You will see an important language about Ukraine, including the connection of defense spending up to 2035 to Ukraine and the need for Ukraine to remain in the fight. This is a clear commitment of the allies,” Routte said.

He added that a commitment made by NATO a year ago to allow Ukraine to enter the Alliance is still in force.

“The NATO Allies agreed that for Ukraine there is an irreversible part of Ukraine to enter NATO, and that remains true today, and will remain true on Thursday, after the summit,” said Rutte.

Trump will process that feeling is not clear. In the days after Russia began its mass invasion in 2022, which even from the beginning included attacks against civil neighborhoods, Trump described him as “experts” and “genius.”

Omar Havana through Getty Images

Earlier this month, at the G7 meeting of the world’s largest democratic economies, Trump essentially blamed the invasion of group leaders for having injured Putin’s feelings by expelling Russia from the then G8 in 2014.

“Putin tells me. He doesn’t talk to anyone else,” Trump said. “Because he was very insulted when he was expelled in the G8, as I would, as it would be, as anyone would be.”

However, that expulsion took place in response to the first invasion of Putin of Ukraine, which resulted in its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula as Russian territory.

However, despite Routte’s guarantees, however, the organizers of the summit have taken measures to shorten the annual meeting and eliminate elements of the agenda that Trump would find objectable, according to NATO observers.

For example, leaders agreed at the 2024 summit in Washington, DC, create a comprehensive strategy to deal with Russia as a growing threat. NATO staff in Brussels began working on it, reaching the 32 members to obtain information, with the aim of having a ready report for members to approve at the 2025 meeting in The Hague.

However, between these two meetings, President Pro-Otan, Joe Biden, was replaced by the anti-no Trump president, who continues to describe the alliance as if they were a protection racket directed by the mafia, with the United States in the role of the chief of the mafia. He has said, publicly and repeatedly, that the other NATO members are “criminals” in their “quotas”, so that they did not protect them if they were attacked by Russia.

In fact, the alliance is a voluntary association of nations that agree to use hardware and military systems compatible with each other to allow a common defense. After the invasion of Russia in 2014 of Ukraine, the members, at the request of the then President Barack Obama, agreed to increase defense expense to at least 2% of their respective gross national products by 2024. In response to Russia’s most recent invasion in 2022, the Alliance plans to approve a 5% goal at the formal business meeting on Wednesday.

Russia’s strategy, however, was not completed and will not be presented at Wednesday’s meeting, as originally imagined.

“That was the task that occurred at the NATO Summit a year ago,” said Jan Techau, an analyst based in Berlin of the Center for the analysis of European policies. “The Americans insisted and said: ‘No, we don’t want this.’ And so everything was archived.”