NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, at a joint press conference after a meeting of the "coalition of the willing", said that new US sanctions against the largest Russian oil companies "Rosneft" and "Lukoil" "will significantly increase the pressure on Putin" and push him to negotiations, the BBC quoted him as saying.
According to Rutte, they also demonstrate Donald Trump"s "absolute commitment" to ending the war and establishing lasting peace in Ukraine.
Russian troops are achieving "small successes" on the battlefield in Ukraine and these "small successes" come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Russian lives, the NATO chief said.
The Russian president is "running out of money, troops and ideas," Rutte added. Now is the time to increase the pressure, he stressed.
When asked whether he thought it likely that Donald Trump would eventually send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, despite his previous refusal, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that each ally decides for itself what type of weapons to deliver to Kiev.
He said Ukraine had the right to defend itself, including by striking targets in Russia with long-range weapons.
According to Rutte, the United States was already supplying Ukraine with a "wide range of weapons."
Since July, there had been a risk that the flow of weapons would slow down. But Trump decided to "reopen the floodgates" by providing "essential" weapons that "only the United States can provide," the head of the North Atlantic Alliance stressed.
"We are making every effort to ensure continuity of supplies," Rutte added.