In an interview that aired on Friday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte confirmed that NATO membership for Ukraine was removed from the table. The announcement comes as President Donald Trump is engaging with Kiev and Moscow in an effort to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
According to Interfax-Ukraine, Rutte was asked by Bloomberg TV’s Annemarie Gordern if Trump had removed the issue of Ukraine’s accession to NATO from the negotiating table. Rutte answered “yes.”
Rutte’s predecessor Jens Stoltenberg explained in 2023 that the bloc’s refusal to stop expanding NATO was a paramount reason for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg said. “That was what he sent us. And [that] was a precondition for not invade [sic] Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.”
He added, “He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”
In 2021, before the invasion, and in 2022, after the invasion, Putin was willing to negotiate with Washington, Brussels, and Kiev on Ukrainian neutrality to prevent or end the war. However, his overtures were rebuffed by the Joe Biden administration, which refused to negotiate on the issue of NATO expansion.
While Washington and Brussels elected not to take membership off the table for Kiev, provoking the Russian invasion, NATO countries have not made a serious push to admit Ukraine as a member.
In his interview with Bloomberg TV, Rutte went on to say that Europe could normalize ties with Russia once the war is over. “It’s normal if the war would have stopped for Europe somehow, step by step, and also for the US, step by step, to restore normal relations with Russia,” he explained.
Rutte argued that Trump’s effort to engage with Russian President Vladimir Putin, something the Biden administration refused to do, has broken the gridlock and could provide a path to end the war. “The Trump administration, the president himself, broke the deadlock in this war because he started to engage with the Russians. I think that’s positive for the Ukrainians,” he stated.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute. He hosts The Kyle Anzalone Show and is co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Connor Freeman.
