Putin ‘trying to break the Ukrainian people – they will not be broken,’ says Nato’s Rutte – Europe live | Europe
Putin ‘trying to break people of Ukraine,’ but they will not be broken, Nato’s Rutte says
Nato’s Rutte is here now.
He talks about Nato’s push to increase its defence spending, hailing some progress in this area.
Turning to Ukraine, he says he was there last week and saw first-hand the impact of Russia’s “relentless attacks.”
“President Putin is trying to break the people of Ukraine, hoping to weaken their resolve. But Ukraine and the Ukrainian people have shown time and again that they will not be broken.”
But he says Ukraine “cannot sustain this fight or secure the peace alone,” and stresses the importance of allied support through Nato.
Ukraine’s defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov will join tomorrow’s Nato ministerial for talks on “how allies can enhance their support and also how they can make it more effective.”
Key events
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Closing summary
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Take your relationship to next level with video game, Spanish bishops tell couples
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Dutch court orders investigation into mismanagement of Nexperia chipmaker
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Trump official allies with Europe’s far right in attacks on migration and hate speech policies
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Arctic, High North ‘increasingly important for collective security,’ Rutte insists as Nato launches mission to respond to Trump’s concerns
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Putin ‘trying to break people of Ukraine,’ but they will not be broken, Nato’s Rutte says
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Denmark says will ‘substantially’ contribute to new Nato Arctic mission
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Trilateral talks with US, Russia expected to resume next week with focus on territory, Zelenskyy says
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There will be no trust in diplomacy as Russia ‘continues to kill, destroy infrastructure’, Zelenskyy says
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UK to double British troops deployed to Norway to protect Arctic, High North over next three years
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Nato’s Arctic Sentry mission begins to secure Arctic, High North after Trump’s complaints
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Germany faces waves of industrial action with Lufthansa strike set to cause disruption on Thursday
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Merz and Meloni team up to influence EU’s thinking on competitiveness reforms
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EU proposes plan to counter drone threats after months of sightings causing disruptions at major airports
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Russia will take ‘countermeasures, including military ones’ if west increases footprint on Greenland
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Norway defence chief says Russia could invade to protect nuclear assets
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Four dead after Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight amid reported US pressure on Ukraine to end war
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Morning opening: Ms von der Leyen, tear down these barriers
Closing summary
Jakub Krupa
… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today!
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Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has warned that Russia’s president Putin “is trying to break the people of Ukraine, hoping to weaken their resolve,” but he drew on his last week’s visit to the country saying that “they have show time and again they will not be broken” (15:07, 15:18, 15:21).
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His comments come after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy cautioned that “as long as Russia continues to kill people and destroy our infrastructure, there will not be sufficient public trust in active diplomacy” (13:43), amid reports of US putting pressure on Kyiv to end the war (10:17) despite continued Russian attacks.
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The trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia talks are expected to continue next week, Zelenskyy said (14:28).
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Key talks on European security are expected to be continued at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, which we will report live here, on Europe Live.
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Separately, Nato announced that its Arctic Sentry mission to strengthen the alliance’s presence and the regional security in the Arctic has now formally begun (13:11), seemingly in large part in response to Donald Trump’s recent complaints about the region’s security as he discussed his intention of acquiring Greenland (15:11, 15:24, 15:35).
Meanwhile,
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European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen insisted this morning that the EU needs to “tear down” the economic barriers that prevent it from becoming “a global giant” and deepen its internal market, as she kicked off 48 hours of intensive discussions on the bloc’s economy (9:51).
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Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni emerged as leaders of a group of countries pushing for rapid reforms of the EU to increase the bloc’s competitiveness ahead of tomorrow’s crunch summit in Belgium (12:01).
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The commission has also outlined its plan to counter drone threats after months of disruptions caused by drones and meteorological balloons affecting major airports across the EU (11:38).
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Speaking of which, major disruptions loom in German air traffic on Thursday after calls by two unions for strikes by Lufthansa pilots and cabin crew (12:52).
And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at [email protected].
I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
Take your relationship to next level with video game, Spanish bishops tell couples
Sam Jones
in Madrid
On a lighter note, faced with a steeply declining number of church weddings, Spanish bishops have turned their eye to the virtual realm in the hope that a new video game will help entice more couples to the altar.
According to the most recent figures, less than 18% of all weddings in Spain in 2024 – 31,462 out of 175,364 – took place in church. The numbers are dramatically down from 2007 when more than 55% of weddings happened in a Roman Catholic church.
The dwindling numbers, coupled with high divorce rates, have led the church to launch a number of initiatives in recent years designed to safeguard and promote the sacrament of marriage.
Its latest campaign uses a video game, Level Up! A Two-player Game, to try to explore and explain the qualities on which marriage depends.
The retro game, whose slogan is “El amor, la aventura más épica” (Love is the most epic adventure), features a young couple, Fran and Elena, going about their daily tasks and earning prizes as they learn about the importance of patience, generosity, modesty, integrity and empathy.
The idea of the game is to provide players with real-life situations “such as problems at work, a stag do at a resort, a relationship with an ex-girlfriend” as they reflect on marriage. It is being rolled out in time for Valentine’s Day.
“The campaign is also proactive, aiming to showcase the beauty of Christian marriage,” the Spanish bishops’ conference said in a statement. “It’s not primarily aimed at those already committed, but rather seeks to encourage couples who desire a stable commitment to consider a church wedding.”
The idea was suggested by students at the Pontifical University of Salamanca and developed by a professional video game designer.
Dutch court orders investigation into mismanagement of Nexperia chipmaker
Lisa O’Carroll
A Dutch court has ordered an investigation into mismanagement at chipmaker Nexperia which was plunged into a highly politicised row with China last October that nearly saw car production around the world come to a halt.
The firm, based in the Netherlands but whose parent company is China’s Wingtech, has been the subject of a standoff between Beijing and the West, ever since the Dutch government took supervisory control of the company in a move that sent shock waves across Europe, among political and industry leaders.
“(The court) finds that there are valid reasons to doubt the sound policy and conduct of business at Nexperia and orders an investigation,” said the Amsterdam-based Enterprise Chamber in a statement.
The investigation is expected to take months.
It also upheld an October decision to suspend former CEO Zhang Xuezheng, the founder of Nexperia’s Chinese parent Wingtech, saying the company needs stability.
The decision leaves control of the company in the hands of the European team that has overseen it since a Dutch state intervention which led to a conflict that has disrupted automotive industry supply lines around the world.
A spokesperson for the Chinese parent firm said: “Wingtech regrets that the Court has not fully restored our shareholder rights by its decision, and instead kept previous extraordinary interim measures in place pending further inquiry.
“Wingtech has always been confident that a full, fair and impartial inquiry will demonstrate that the actions taken by the shareholder were appropriate and in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders,” they added.
Trump official allies with Europe’s far right in attacks on migration and hate speech policies
Jason Wilson
In other news, as Donald Trump redoubled his war of words on the European Union and Nato in recent weeks, a senior state department official, Sarah B Rogers, was publicly attacking policies on hate speech and immigration by ostensible US allies, and promoting far-right parties abroad.
Rogers has arguably become the public face of the Trump administration’s growing hostility to European liberal democracies. Since assuming office in October, she has met with far-right European politicians, criticized prosecutions under longstanding hate speech laws, and boasted online of sanctions against critics of hate speech and disinformation on US big tech platforms.
Rogers is undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, a top-10 state department role that was created in 1999 to strengthen relationships between the US and foreign publics, as opposed to foreign governments and diplomats.
Rogers, however, appears to be concerned with winning over a particular slice of foreign public opinion.
Her recent posts on Twitter/X have included a characterization of some migrants in Germany as “barbarian rapist hordes”, a comment on Sweden apparently linking sexual violence to immigration policy (“If your government cared about ‘women’s safety,’ it would have a different migration policy”), and the recitation of the view that “advocates of unlimited third world immigration have long controlled a disproportionate share of official knowledge production”.
Expert observers of the European far right said that commentary such as Rogers’s reflected a Trump administration decision to support those movements.
Léonie de Jonge, professor of research on far-right extremism at the University of Tübingen who has published extensive research on the European far right, said: “The Trump administration has a vested interest in strengthening anti-democratic movements abroad, as doing so helps advance its own agenda while lending legitimacy to these actors and their activities.”
Rogers is in Poland today, meeting with senior representatives of Poland’s conversative president Karol Nawrocki to discuss issues to do with history and remembrance, his spokesperson said, and separately with officials from Poland’s liberal government.
And that ends Rutte’s presser.
But we are likely to hear more from EU defence ministers as they arrive for this afternoon’s meeting of the EU’s foreign affairs (defence) council.
Rutte gets asked if he thinks the Arctic sentry will prove to be enough to respond to Trump’s concerns about the region’s security.
He says it’s a gradual response based on what is needed for the alliance, coming from his talks with Trump.
He adds that US talks with Denmark on Greenland are separate to that, and he is not involved in them.
Rutte also gets asked about reported Russia’s war game exercises, and he simply says that Nato needs to be in a position to respond to any threat so “nobody thinks that they can attack us, because our reaction will be devastating.”
“What we need to do and make sure of is that in a couple of years, we can still react in a devastating way if anyone tries to attack this defensive alliance and therefore it’s so important what you’re doing along the eastern flank,” he says.
“We are a defensive alliance, but our reaction will be lethal if they try to attack us,” he adds.
Rutte also gets asked about potential US troops reductions in Europe and his asks at Nato’s upcoming summit in Ankara in July.
He doesn’t exactly answer the first part of the question, saying simply that the US has lots of areas of interest to focus on, and that Europe is stepping up and doing more, but it’s a “step by step” process.
He says it is clear there will always be “a strong US presence in Europe, … not only as the ultimate guarantor of our freedom” with nuclear weapons, but “also when it comes to the conventional forces.”
On Ankara, he says he wants to discuss it with ministers first, but it will focus on implementing the decisions taken at last year’s Hague summit on ramping up defence spending.
Rutte gets asked if he shared his experience of visiting Ukraine last week with the US president, Donald Trump.
He responds with one word: “yes.”
Pushed a bit further, he says:
“The American administration is totally aware of the dreadful situation in Ukraine. …
In my regular context with the American president, of course, we update each other on what’s happening, what we are seeing. That’s part of our regular conversation. So to your questions, yes, absolute clarity in the US on what’s happening in Ukraine. There’s no doubt.”
Asked for more details on Arctic Sentry, Rutte says it’s needed “because we have a clear sense that the Russians and the Chinese are becoming more and more active there.”
(That’s not really what the Danes say, though.)
He says the mission will “enhance” how vigilant Nato is, but says he can’t say much more to not “inform the people in Moscow and Beijing a bit too much.”
Rutte also gets asked about the prospect of holding elections in Ukraine.
He doesn’t seem to be too keen to answer the question and give journalists a line on FT’s report from earlier today suggesting the US was putting pressure on Kyiv to call a presidential election (10:17).
He simply says in general terms that “it is up to the Ukrainians to decide what ultimately they can accept in terms of a peace deal, particularly when it comes to the very sensitive issue of territory.”
He says he has “full trust in the Ukrainian leadership and Ukrainian democracy,” and that is “up to them” to decide how to progress.
Rutte also gets asked about security guarantees for Ukraine.
He claims “great progress” has been made over the last six months, and says there are different elements to security guarantees, including the need to strengthen the Ukrainian armed forces, the Franco-British Coalition of the Willing, and the broader discussions with the US.
He says the current talks are “testing, under the leadership of the American president … whether the Russians are willing to play ball so that we can bring this terrible war to a lasting end so that they will never, ever try again to attack Ukraine.”
He then gets asked about the push from France’s Emmanuel Macron to reopen discussions with Russia.
He says it’s not his role to advise countries and generally says he encourages every initiative which could bring the war to an end – but stresses “the US leadership is key,” as he hails Trump for “breaking the deadlock.”
Rutte also gets asked about the absence of a senior US minister, with undersecretary Elbridge A. Colby attending instead of Pete Hegseth.
But he insists that does not mean anything in terms of US involvement in Nato, as he says that with global interests, US ministers “not always can be here.”
He says Colby is “a very important guy,” and the two have worked closely over the last year or so, and he says it is “very positive” to see him take part in tomorrow’s meeting.
Arctic, High North ‘increasingly important for collective security,’ Rutte insists as Nato launches mission to respond to Trump’s concerns
Turning to Arctic and the High North, Rutte says the region is “increasingly important for our collective security.”
He says Nato members “regularly conduct exercsies in the Arctic, ensure we are ready to fight and operation in all conditions.”
But picking up some of Trump’s concerns expressed over Greenland, he says that “in the face of Russia’s increased military activity and China’s growing interest in the High North, it was crucial that we do more.”
He says the new Arctic Sentry mission (13:11) will bring together existing exercises and logistics to show the alliance’s “clear our commitment to ensuring Arctic security and indeed the security of the whole Alliance together.”
He says that the new mission will also help allies to map “potential challenges” so “any gaps can be quickly and effectively addressed.”
He rejects a suggestion it’s just a branding exercise, and says the mission will “bring everything we do in the Arctic together under one command” in the same way Nato has changed its way of operating on the eastern flank.
“This is really big. This is a huge thing, and there’s never happened before,” he says.
Putin ‘trying to break people of Ukraine,’ but they will not be broken, Nato’s Rutte says
Nato’s Rutte is here now.
He talks about Nato’s push to increase its defence spending, hailing some progress in this area.
Turning to Ukraine, he says he was there last week and saw first-hand the impact of Russia’s “relentless attacks.”
“President Putin is trying to break the people of Ukraine, hoping to weaken their resolve. But Ukraine and the Ukrainian people have shown time and again that they will not be broken.”
But he says Ukraine “cannot sustain this fight or secure the peace alone,” and stresses the importance of allied support through Nato.
Ukraine’s defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov will join tomorrow’s Nato ministerial for talks on “how allies can enhance their support and also how they can make it more effective.”
Denmark says will ‘substantially’ contribute to new Nato Arctic mission
Meanwhile, Denmark has (unsurprisingly) also pledged to “substantially” contribute to a newly launched Nato mission in the Arctic, the Arctic Sentry (13:11).
“We will substantially contribute, and we will maintain momentum to ensure that the Arctic is reflected in Nato’s plans and exercise activities in the long term,” defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in comments reported by AFP.
He added that the details of the support would be determined in coordination with Nato allies.
Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte is due to speak with reporters any moment now, so expect more details from him. I will bring you all the latest here.
Trilateral talks with US, Russia expected to resume next week with focus on territory, Zelenskyy says
Separately, Zelenskyy told Bloomberg (£) that the next round of talks with US and Russia is set to focus on the thorny issue of territorial concessions demanded by Moscow.
He said the talks are expected to take place on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, but it was still unclear if Russia would agree to talks taking place in the US, Bloomberg reported.
Zelenskyy also said that “neither the Russians, nor us” were keen on the US compromise idea of establishing a free economic zone in the eastern region of Donbas.
“If it is our territory – and it is our territory – then the country whose territory it is should govern it,” he said.
There will be no trust in diplomacy as Russia ‘continues to kill, destroy infrastructure’, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that “as long as Russia continues to kill people and destroy our infrastructure, there will not be sufficient public trust in active diplomacy.”
“This is important for all of Ukraine’s partners – in the United States and Europe – to understand,” he said.
He said that “security issues are the key priority right now,” as Ukraine faces continuing attacks, including on civilian population and energy infrastructure.
“Everything else must be addressed only in conjunction with truly guaranteed security,” he stressed.
Zelenskyy also offered a bit more detail on the overnight Russian attack on Kharkiv region (10:17), which killed four: three small children and their father. He said the children’s mother is in hospital.
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