BRUSSELS, Sept 30 (Reuters) – NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday there was no imminent threat to NATO territory from Russia, in response to a warning issued by Moscow over the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
The threat assessment regarding Russia was unchanged from three weeks, three months and a year ago, Rutte said, despite the warning sent to NATO by Moscow in a document seen by Reuters.
In the document, Russia said it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off the territory, which is on the Baltic Sea sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
NATO reacted with “a bit of calm”, Rutte said. “Basically what we said is: ‘Hey, listen, we are defensive alliance and stop the nuclear threat’,” he said at an event held by Euronews in Brussels.
If Russia wanted to act against Finland, one of the Baltic nations, Poland or any other NATO country, it would be preceded by a military build-up, Rutte added. He underlined the United States would stay involved in defending Europe by conventional and nuclear means.
Meanwhile NATO would continue what it was doing, namely supporting Ukraine and investing in its defence, he said.
He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no interest in negotiating to end the war in Ukraine.
“It takes two to tango,” he said. “So far, it doesn’t seem that Vladimir Putin is willing to tango when it comes to a peace deal.”
(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout, Lili Bayer and Andrew Gray, editing by Inti Landauro and Alex Richardson)
