NATO chief says Putin using Ukraine as ‘testing ground for experimental missiles’ and is ‘not interested in peace’

Russian President Vladimir Putin is using Ukraine as a “testing ground for experimental missiles” and is “not interested in peace”, NATO’s secretary general has warned.

Mark Rutte made the remarks as foreign ministers from the alliance’s 32 members gathered in Brussels for a two-day meeting where there will be several discussions on Ukraine.

In a letter to his NATO counterparts ahead of the meeting, Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said his country would not settle for anything less than NATO membership to guarantee its future security.

Ukraine war: Latest updates

It comes as incoming US President-elect Donald Trump is widely expected to pursue a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine when he takes office on 20 January.

Mr Rutte, the former prime minister of the Netherlands, said in Belgium that Mr Putin was not interested in peace and was trying to take more Ukrainian territory because he “thinks he can break Ukraine’s resolve and ours, but he is wrong”.

He also said: “Russia’s aggression shows no sign of abating – just the opposite – Putin is ramping up his rhetoric and reckless actions.

“He is using Ukraine as a testing ground for experimental missiles and is deploying North Korean soldiers in this illegal war.“

Russia’s new weapon

The NATO chief appeared to be referring to the use of a new ballistic weapon, nicknamed “Oreshnik”, which was fired at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in late November.

Mr Sybiha said in his letter that an invitation to join NATO would remove one of Russia’s main arguments for waging its war – namely, preventing Ukraine from becoming a member of the alliance.

However, NATO allies are expected to sidestep Kyiv’s call for an immediate invitation at the Brussels meeting.

It comes after Keith Kellogg, a former general recently named by Mr Trump as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, co-authored a paper earlier this year that called for putting off NATO membership for Ukraine “for an extended period” in exchange for a “peace deal with security guarantees”.

However, Ukraine has insisted it would accept nothing less than NATO membership and cited a pact 30 years ago under which it relinquished nuclear arms in return for security assurances from major powers that proved worthless.

‘We must avoid mistakes’

Brandishing a copy of that agreement, known as the Budapest Memorandum, as he arrived at the NATO meeting, Mr Sybiha said: “This document failed to secure Ukrainian security and transatlantic security, so we must avoid (repeating) such mistakes.”

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More military aid for Ukraine

Meanwhile, Mr Rutte has said the most urgent issue was providing Kyiv with more arms to repel Russian forces.

He said in Brussels: “The meeting in the next two days will very much concentrate on how to make sure that Ukraine, whenever it decides to enter into peace talks, will do so from positional strength.

“And to get there, it is crucial that more military aid will be pumped into Ukraine.”

The NATO chief added that he welcomed recent announcements of more military aid for Ukraine by the United States, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Norway.

On Monday, the US announced a new weapons package for Ukraine worth $725m (£570m).

Shift in Starmer’s stance

It came the same day UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer indicated a shift in his stance on the war as he said it was British policy to “put Ukraine in the strongest possible position for negotiations”.

Only last month, both Sir Keir and French President Emmanuel Macron were promising to “support Ukraine unwaveringly and for as long as necessary to thwart Russia’s war of aggression”.

If negotiations happen and settle on some kind of compromise, many observers will likely say this means Russian aggression will have prevailed to some extent at least.

Despite expectations that the Trump administration will push for peace talks, a US-based thinktank has said comments from inside Russia suggest Mr Putin will not engage in anything “that results in anything less than total Ukrainian capitulation”.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted remarks made by Kremlin affiliate Konstantin Malofeev to the Financial Times that Mr Putin will likely reject any plan for peace negotiations that Mr Trump puts forth unless the plan accounts for Russia’s “security concerns”.