The Secretary General of NATO, about the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska: “It will be the decisive test to see how serious it is about peace.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will be decisive to prove if Putin is really interested in peace, Politico reports, according to News.ro.

“Next Friday will be important, because it will be about Putin's testing, how serious it is about the conclusion of this terrible war,” Rutte said in the show “This Week” from ABC, discussing the summit in Alaska meant to contribute to the conclusion of the Russia's war with Ukraine.

In the discussion with moderator Jonathan Karl, Rutte said that he believes that Trump is willing to exert pressure on the Russian president in relation to this brutal war.

“I truly believe that President Donald Trump wants to end this situation,” Rutte told Karl. “He wants to put an end to the terrible losses of human lives. He wants to put an end to the terrible destruction caused to the infrastructure in Ukraine. So many people lose their lives. They are provoked so many destruction.”

Rutte, former prime minister of the Netherlands, added: “I saw how President Trump exerted incredible pressure on Russia.”

Trump was criticized for organizing a meeting with Putin without Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, although there were suggestions that Zelenski could still be invited.

“Allowed Putin to obtain the advantage of the initiative”

The president was criticized – including Trump's former national security counselor John Bolton, later in the same ABC program – because he invited Putin on American territory and said that Ukraine might have to give up some of its territory.

“I think Trump has already made a few mistakes,” Bolton said. “First of all, he organized this meeting on the American territory, thus legitimizing a leader of a rebellious state. Secondly, Putin allowed Putin to obtain the advantage of the initiative, presenting his first plane of peace.”

In the discussion with Karl, Rutte said she was seeing the meeting in Alaska as a valid starting point, but she agreed that no agreement without Ukraine is possible or without taking into account the long -term security and independence of Ukraine.

“It will be about the territory,” said Rutte referring to any agreement that will end the war. “Of course, it will be about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to recognize that Ukraine decides your own future, that Ukraine must be a sovereign nation, which decides on its own geopolitical future, without restrictions on the level of its military troops, and that NATO must not have restrictions on our presence on the Finland, as in the Finland.