BRUSSELS, December 3. /TASS/. Ukraine needs more military aid and less discussion on the potential peace talks with Russia, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said at a press conference.
Answering a reporter's question about what Ukraine needs to return the territories allegedly "occupied" by Russia and what a future peace deal might look like, Rutte said: "I would say more military aid and less discussions on what a peace process could look like." According to the NATO chief, "Ukraine doesn't need more ideas on what a peace process could look like."
In addition, Rutte said that NATO will discuss pumping Ukraine with weapons to strengthen its positions in potential peace talks, not sending its troops into the conflict zone.
"The meeting in the next two days will very much concentrate on how to make sure that Ukraine, wherever it decides to enter into peace talks, will do so from position of strength. And to get there, it is crucial that more military aid will be pumped into Ukraine," he said in response to a question from Ukrainian reporters about the possibility of sending NATO troops to Ukraine.
The NATO chief also said that the front in Ukraine was slowly shifting to the west. "At the moment, the front is moving not from the West to the East, but from the East to the West slowly," Rutte admitted, hinting that NATO would like to see a completely opposite dynamic. He also emphasized that NATO is carefully analyzing Russia’s losses during its offensive.
According to the NATO secretary general, the alliance's foreign ministers at the December 3-4 meeting will discuss the issues of increasing military assistance to Ukraine in order to prepare the country for the supposed peace talks with Russia "from the best possible positions." The meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council will also take place within the framework of the meeting of NATO's top diplomats, Rutte said.