NATO Secretary General: The US should keep supporting Ukraine, but Europe should pay more

The United States should continue to supply Ukraine with weapons to resist Russian aggression, but Europe should invest more in defense, increase arms production and take a larger share of the costs of helping Kiev, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on January 23 in a speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Regarding Ukraine, we need the US to remain involved. If the new Trump administration wants to continue supplying Ukraine from its defense and industrial base, the Europeans will pay the bill, I am absolutely convinced of that, we must be ready to do it,” he noted.

He said that US President Donald Trump is right when he says that Europe should pay more to help Ukraine win the war because “this is a global conflict, but still Ukraine is closer to Europe than to the US.”

Rutte did not give specific figures for how much Europe would pay, nor did he say whether he had received agreement from European leaders on the matter.

Richard Grenell, Trump’s special envoy for special missions, spoke via video link at a meeting in Davos with the participation of Rutte. Grenell criticized the NATO Secretary General, who was previously the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and supported the alliance’s position that Ukraine would become a member of the alliance in the future.

“The American people are the ones who pay for defense. You can’t ask the American people to expand the NATO umbrella when current members aren’t paying their fair share — and that includes the Dutch, who have to step up,” Grenell said.

US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that the European Union should do more to support Ukraine.