Mark Rutte considers normal that the relationships of the NATO with Russia “step by step” can be redirected after the end of the invasion launched by Putin in Ukraine. The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance made these statements in … An interview with the Bloomberg agency after his meeting with Donald Trump at the White House this Thursday. Rutte pointed out that this point has not yet been reached. At the moment, you have to continue “pressing” the Kremlin and “make sure that she is ready to establish serious negotiations with the US administration and, of course, with the Ukrainians,” says the NATO secretary.
Not only these statements were shocking in Ukraine. The press set its attention at another specific moment of the interview. The journalist asked if the future membership of Ukraine in NATO is out of the negotiating table and Routte seems to nod with a “yes.” The main headlines in the country highlighted this part of the conversation. “Rutte confirmed that Trump eliminated the issue of Ukraine membership in the NATO of the conversations to end the war,” they say from the Zn website, also on the social networks of Ukrainska Pravda, One of the country’s greatest digital, stressed that “the membership of Ukraine in NATO is no longer under consideration, says its general secretary, Mark Rutte.”
The moment also generated reactions within Ukrainian policy. The opposition deputy Oleksiy Gontentko wrote in his X account that “the adhesion of Ukraine to NATO is no longer under consideration.” The legislator adds that, without NATO, Ukraine will need nuclear weapons to guarantee their future safety: «Let me remind me of the words I said before. Or we have NATO or we have nuclear weapons. We no longer have NATO. That is why we need nuclear weapons. There is no other option ».
The Ukrainian delegation said in Yeda to the US party that they would not be deposed to comply with Russia’s vetoes about its integration into international organizations such as the European Union or the Atlantic Alliance. A Ukrainian digital medium source, Ukrainska Pravda, states that kyiv’s team has also insisted that Ukrainian adhesion aspirations to NATO cannot be removed from the agenda.
«Red lines»
Ukraine is willing to cooperate with the United States without skipping its own agenda and red lines. In kyiv they are expecting Trump’s response to Putin before the refusal of the Russian president to the 30 -day truce. And the first signals are not good. Trump said in his social social network that his team’s conversations with Putin were “good and constructive.”
In addition, the president mentioned in that same message that “thousands of Ukrainian troops are completely surrounded by the Russian army and in a very vulnerable situation,” probably referring to kyiv’s contingent in Kursk. The General Staff of Ukraine has come to deny the message. “The reports on an alleged ‘fence’ of Ukrainian units by the enemy in the Kursk region are false and manufactured by the Russians for political manipulation purposes and to exert pressure on Ukraine and its partners.”
The authorities of the country invaded, for the moment, are not receiving signals of US pressures on Russia. However, Washington’s demands are addressed again to kyiv. Mike Waltz, National Security Advisor of the White House, reiterated on Thursday that Ukraine must make territorial concessions to achieve peace. Precisely, Waltz, asks to back down in one of the “red line” marked by Zelenski.
The team sent by kyiv to Yeda, where last Tuesday the meeting with the Trump emissaries took place, presented their own basic conditions to initiate any negotiation process with Russia. One of them to reject the recognition of the territory occupied by the forces of Moscow, almost 20% of the country, as part of Russia.
Without giving territory
The president of Ukraine, after the victory of the Republican in the elections, had already modified his speech on this issue raising the possibility of a return by diplomatic roads in the invaded areas. This does not mean any territorial assignment, he clarified then, even less recognition, the Ukrainian authorities argue.
50% of citizens are not willing to give any part of their country, even if that supposes the war continues. 39% of respondents approve the territorial concessions in exchange for peace, according to a survey of the International Institute of Sociology of kyiv (Kiis) made in early March. Citizens also consider in a majority way that Russia intends to end Ukraine and will not stop their territorial ambitions in the invaded parties. 87% of Ukrainians believe that Russia does not want to stop in the territories already occupied, ”says KISS in another democopic study.
kyiv not only places its red lines in territorial concessions, it also reiterates its refusal to reduce the size of its army, required by Moscow already in the Istanbul negotiations in 2022. Moscow’s maximalist demands are maintained, and these were never exclusively on the control of Ukrainian territories. The Kremlin wants a “friend” government in kyiv and that the whole country is integrated into its area of influence.
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