"We still need the USA's involvement in Ukraine," said Rutte. If the new government is prepared to continue to supply Ukraine from its arms industry, the Europeans will foot the bill. He was firmly convinced of this. "We must be prepared to do this," Rutte continued. At the start of his second term in office at the beginning of the week, Trump said that Europe must do more to support Ukraine.

"Two percent of GDP not nearly enough"
Rutte did not comment specifically on the question of how high the defense budgets of the individual NATO countries should be. However, he said that they should definitely be higher than two percent, which is "not nearly enough". 

Trump recently called for the allies to spend five percent of their gross domestic product on defense in the future. For many NATO countries, this would mean that they would have to more than double their defense spending.

Front in Ukraine "moving in the wrong direction"
Rutte emphasized that it is crucial that Russia does not win its war of aggression against Ukraine. In this case, Russian President Vladimir Putin would triumph and "high-five" the leaders of North Korea and China. Support for Ukraine should not be scaled back, on the contrary, it should be increased, said the NATO chief. "The front line is moving in the wrong direction."

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