Nato chief Rutte: ‘Keep on dreaming’ if you think Europe could defend itself without US – as it happened | World news

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today!

• Nato secretary general Mark Rutte told EU lawmakers that if they think that Europe can defend itself without the US, they should “keep on dreaming” (16:47), as he repeatedly defended the need for a close working relationship with the US president, Donald Trump, despite recent public clashes over Greenland and the role of Nato allies in Afghanistan.

• In his first longer public outing since last week’s talks with Trump on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Rutte said there were two separate work streams looking at resolving tensions over Greenland (16:37), saying Nato would have a role in figuring out a way to strengthen the Arctic security.

• Rutte also acknowledged there were “very sensitive” issues to be resolved around Russian demands regarding Ukraine’s territory, but he insisted only Kyiv could make these decisions on what, if anything, can be accepted as a compromise.

• Nato chief also insisted that the US “greatly appreciates” all allied contributions to its “war on terror” in Afghanistan (16:42), despite Trump’s recent comments causing an uproar in Europe (10:51).

Elsewhere,

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the trilateral talks with US and Russia “covered a range of important issues,” but conceded that “complex political matters … remain unresolved,” hinting at further talks later this week (14:22) as the country struggles to deal with the impact of recent Russian strikes on its energy infrastructure (14:08, 15:18).

• The 27 EU countries have given their final approval to fully ban Russian liquefied natural gas imports by 1 January 2027, and Russian pipeline gas by 30 September 2027 (10:36), despite Hungary and Slovakia’s fierce opposition to the move, with the former threatening with a legal action (14:32).

• The European Commission has launched an investigation into Elon Musk’s X over manipulated sexually explicit images and possible child sexual abuse material spread by the platform’s AI Grok feature (12:05, 12:14, 12:47).

• India and the European Union have reportedly concluded negotiations on a long-coveted trade deal, which could be announced as early as Tuesday (14:43).

• Meanwhile, the European Parliament has put off until next week a decision on whether to resume its work on the European Union’s trade deal with the United States, Reuters reported.

And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.

If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.

I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Rutte ends on a warning that Ukraine’s interception rates against Russian drones has come down, as the country doesn’t have enough interceptors to fight back and work.

He urges EU lawmakers to help him make the case for some leaders who sit on a large pile of interceptors – though he refuses to name them in an open session – to help Ukraine.

“This is the difference between life and death, day in, day out, and how we protect the crucial energy infrastructure,” he says.

He ends by joking that he answered most questions, but he found one or two “too difficult” to answer on the spot.

And that’s it from him.

Rutte declines to comment on the US “board of peace.”

He then backs various regional arrangements that deepen security and defence cooperation on smaller scale, such as E3, E5 or Bucharest Nine.

Touching upon other topics, he briefly discusses Iran and the security in the Balkans.

Rutte also tells EU lawmakers that if they think the EU or Europe as whole can defend itself without the US, they should “keep on dreaming”.

He says Europe’s defence spending would then have to go massively up to 10%, with further need to buy own nuclear capability and spend “billions and billions of euros.”

He also says Europe needs the US and similarly the US needs Nato.

He adds that even as US priorities evolve, there will “always be a very strong conventional US presence in Europe.”

Rutte also again defends his relationship with Trump.

He says:

“Hey, listen, if somebody is doing good stuff and President Trump is doing a lot of good stuff, I believe, I know I’m irritating a lot of you again, but I think so because, as I said also in Davos, the 2% reached by all, Nato countries, … at the end of 2025, would never, ever, ever have happened without Trump.”

He adds that Spain, Italy, Belgium and Canada would have not moved to increase their defence spending without Trump, “no way.”

He says Trump had “one big irritant” over Europe’s lower defence spending in comparison, but insists that is “gone” with new commitment from allies.

He also says he doesn’t mind Trump publishing his private text messages before Davos.

Rutte also stresses the importance of the allied contribution to Afghanistan, in contrast to Trump’s comments last week.

He notes the US president’s change of tone over the weekend, and says that he knows that “America greatly appreciates all the efforts being made in Afghanistan” and acknowledges the sacrifice from other countries.

Turning to Ukraine, Rutte points to Zelenskyy’s recent comments that the US security guarantees are “close to being agreed upon.”

He acknowledges that there is a big outstanding and “very sensitive” issue on territory with Russia, and he says that only Ukraine can make any decision on what, if anything, they can accept in a way of compromise.

He notes Ukraine would want to join Nato, but points out that some member states remain opposed and so “politically, it’s practically not on the cards,” at least for now.

He flatly denies that the US tried to leverage its promise of security guarantees for Ukraine in talks with Nato on Greenland.

And he welcomes the French move to seize a suspected shadow fleet tanker in a hit to Russia’s model of funding its war against Ukraine.

He also talks about a potential European alternative to Nato without the US, warning that it would be complicated and dismisses it by saying “Putin would love it.”

Rutte says he had numerous phone calls with other European leaders on Greenland last week, as they discussed what’s next, with two main “work streams” emerging.

The first one is to focus on Nato’s collective activities to step up the security in the Arctic and protect the region from Russia and China specifically – both in terms of military, but also in terms of protecting the Greenlandic economy.

The second work stream is more on Danish-Greenlandic-US relations, he says, pointing to a recent meeting between Danish and Greenlandic officials with US vice-president JD Vance and US state secretary Marco Rubio.

He says he won’t be that much involved in this, as he doesn’t have a mandate to go and negotiate on behalf on Denmark.

More broadly, he defends Trump (jokingly saying that he does that “just to irritate you”) saying that the US president does have a point on the Arctic security and more needs to be done there.

Turns out it was just 25 questions.

Rutte begins his answer by saying he’s not sure if he can answer them all.

Obviously.

Let’s see what he says.

Jakub Krupa

It appears that Rutte will have 15 minutes at the very end of the session to respond to roughly 34298734 questions that could each make a great PhD dissertation.

Hope he’s making good notes.

We have now moved to Q&A and Rutte gets asked a number of questions about Russia’s threats that it would consider any western troops in Ukraine to be legitimate targets for strikes, about the US presence in Greenland, the broader Arctic security, and his response to Trump’s comments on allied presence in Afghanistan.

The way the European Parliament’s hearings are structured, he will only get to respond to them en masse at some point (much) later, so, frankly, he will get to do with them whatever he wants and the questions he will answer may be very difficult to the ones actually asked.

I’ll bring you the key lines from his response here.

Rutte begins by talking about the Russian aggression on Ukraine.

He says it is “the harshest winter” for Ukrainians for over a decade, highlighting the worsening issues caused by Russian attacks on critical infrastructure in Kyiv and other cities.

Rutte says that the US-led peace talks are on-going, crediting the US leadership for the initiative, but also mentions the EU-led Coalition of the Willing and its work on security guarantees.

He says the aim should be to get to a peace deal or a long-term ceasefire, “and let’s pray we have it as soon as possible,” and then make sure that Russia’s Vladimir Putin “never, never” attacks Ukraine again.

He then says that Nato continues to support Ukraine with US military equipment worth billions of dollars coming through the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, mechanism and smaller, national initiatives.

He also urges EU lawmakers to not be “overly restrictive” on how €90bn of EU loan on security will be used by imposing any “buy EU” conditions that would restrict Kyiv’s ability to get what’s needed or spend the assigned budgets. “I encourage you to keep Ukraine’s needs first in focus,” he says.

Rutte repeats his general warning that Ukraine’s security “I think we all know …is also our security.”

He then moves on to discuss Nato’s revised GDP defence spending targets and Europe’s broader security partnerships.