NATO will not bow to Russia's threats and will continue its firm support for Ukraine, the pact's Secretary General Mark Rutte said during the first his visit to the headquarters of the new NATO mission for Ukraine in Germany, created to coordinate US military assistance to Kiev, reported Reuters.
Located at the US military base “Clay“ in the German city of Wiesbaden, this structure is officially called the NATO Security Assistance and Training Mission for Ukraine.
„Our message (to Russian President Vladimir Putin) is that we will continue, that we will do everything necessary to ensure that he does not achieve his goals, that Ukraine prevails,” Rutte said yesterday in an interview with Reuters and the German public radio “Hessecher Rundfunk“.
„We are NATO. We are a defensive alliance, not an offensive one. We have no interest in conquering any part of any country outside the territory of NATO," the secretary general of the pact pointed out and added: "As a democratic alliance, the most powerful alliance in world history, uniting 1 billion people, we are ready to counter any threat. And we will never allow ourselves to be intimidated by our opponents.