Interview for REL/ NATO Chief: A measured dialogue is needed on Ukraine

2025-11-24 20:23:32, Kosova & Bota CNA

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the US peace proposal had helped Kiev and Washington move closer towards ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.

Speaking in an interview with Radio Free Europe from the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on November 24, Rutte described the weekend round of talks on Washington's proposal as "very successful."

This round was held in Geneva between Ukrainian and American negotiators.

"Clearly, some of the elements need to be examined with caution," Rutte said of the 28-point plan, adding that "clearly, as a basis, it served its purpose yesterday, bringing the two sides into a real dialogue."

The plan, which was published by several media outlets, including Radio Free Europe, last week raised alarm bells in several European capitals, but also in Kiev, with some calling it a Kremlin "wish list."

The conditions included in it demanded broad concessions from Kiev and appeared to reflect many of the Kremlin's demands, including the handover of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions - known as Donbas - and Crimea, as well as placing limits on the size of Ukraine's military.

The proposal would also allow Moscow to return to the Group of Seven (G7) of the most industrialized countries, as well as gradually ease Western sanctions on the Kremlin.

As the proposal became public, European diplomats scrambled to draft a counterproposal more favorable to Kiev.

NATO chief Mark Rutte said that "elements that are more related to the EU or NATO will be discussed separately."

US President Donald Trump initially gave Ukraine until November 27 to agree to the proposal, although he later softened the deadline.

There have been no public statements on the talks about how the revised plan would address issues such as security guarantees for Ukraine against future Russian threats or how Ukraine's post-war reconstruction would be financed.

Rutte confirmed that he had been in contact with both Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over the weekend and was reserved about discussing the proposal point by point.

But, he stressed that the "ultimate result" of the talks "is a sovereign Ukraine moving forward, a strong nation, and a Russia that never tries to attack again."

"I know one thing about Russians in general and Putin in particular: whenever an agreement is made, you have to make sure that it is in his interest to implement it," Rutte said.

"That's why it's so important that whenever a peace agreement is reached for Ukraine, he [Putin] never tries again. And he will never try again when he knows that the consequences for him will be devastating if he tries to invade Ukraine again after a long-term ceasefire or, better yet, after a peace agreement."

However, Rutte commented on two aspects of the plan that relate to the military alliance: the future dialogue with Russia and Ukraine's possible membership in NATO.

The NATO chief, who took over the leadership of the alliance in October last year, said that future discussions would not take place under the umbrella of the NATO-Russia Council, which last met shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, or through the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which codified relations between the 32-member alliance and Moscow.

"These things are dead, these two institutions, the NATO-Russia Council and the NATO-Russia Founding Act, have been dead since Putin invaded Ukraine," Rutte said, adding that the Kremlin's invasion of the neighboring state was "against all the fundamental principles of our Western values ??and what the NATO-Russia Founding Act stood for and what the NATO-Russia Council was trying to achieve."

Similarly, he did not completely rule out the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO in the future, even though the initial United States proposal stated that the military alliance should not progress further.

However, Rutte added that Kiev's membership in NATO is not currently on the table for discussion.

"Any country within the NATO sphere – that is, in the Euro-Atlantic area – that wants to become a member of NATO, and this is the Washington Treaty of 1949 – can apply for membership. But, to become a member, unanimity is needed. And at this moment, that unanimity is far from being achieved," he said.

"Currently, we have some allies who clearly state that they are against Ukraine's entry into NATO. Of course, we also had the statements from the Washington summit last year, which said that there is an irreversible path towards NATO. This is a reality."/REL