NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called on the ongoing peace negotiations in Ukraine “not to repeat the mistakes made with the Minsk agreements”. He made this statement in a conversation with Deutsche Welle (DW; recognized in Russia as a foreign media agency), responding to a question about security guarantees for Kyiv from the coalition.
According to him, there cannot be a situation “where Russia decides to try again a few years later, launching an unprovoked full-scale attack in 2022.”
The NATO Secretary General did not reveal the content of the peace negotiations. He shared one detail: “A coalition is ready to meet to discuss how to achieve a lasting ceasefire or full peace agreement for Ukraine.” He added that the United States has not yet clarified exactly how involved it will be in providing security guarantees. According to Rutte himself, one such guarantee for Kiev should be that its own powerful armed forces “are the first level of defense.”
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted in December 2022 that participants in the Minsk agreement clearly understood that the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine was not resolved but only frozen, but this gave Kiev “precious time”.
