BUDAPEST, December 12. /TASS/. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto accused NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte of undermining negotiations on Ukraine and urged him to stop heightening tensions.

"If anyone still had doubts that everyone in Brussels had truly lost their minds, then after yesterday's speech by the NATO secretary-general in Berlin, they have finally been convinced. <...> With his statement, the NATO secretary-general has effectively stabbed the peace talks [on Ukraine] in the back. We Hungarians, as members of NATO, reject the secretary-general's words! It is not Ukraine that guarantees the security of European countries, but NATO! These provocative statements are irresponsible and dangerous! We call on Mark Rutte to stop fuelling military tensions," Szijjarto wrote on Facebook (banned in Russia, owned by Meta, which is recognized as extremist in the country).

On Thursday, Rutte, speaking at a forum in Germany, urged Europeans to prepare for the kind of war their "grandfathers and great-grandfathers" had faced. He also reiterated his call for NATO members to increase defense spending and argued that Ukraine’s security is essential for the alliance’s own safety.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously said that Moscow is ready to confirm "in any way" that it has no intention of attacking European countries. He added that politicians who claim otherwise are "out of their minds," calling such assertions "complete nonsense" and "outright lies." Speaking at the General Debate of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov likewise stressed that Russia has never had, and does not have, any intention of attacking NATO or the EU.