‘We are Russia’s next target,’ NATO chief warns, stressing that ‘the time for action is now’

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned allies during a speech in Berlin on 11 December 2025 that “We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way.”

While the NATO allies, spurred for multiple years by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, made a commitment at the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague to invest 5% of GDP annually on defence by 2035, Rutte’s message in Berling had greater urgency.

“When I became NATO secretary general last year I warned that what is happening in Ukraine could happen to Allied countries too, that we have to shift to a wartime mindset, he said. “I fear that too many are quietly complacent; too many don’t feel the urgency, and too many believe that time is on our side. It is not; the time for action is now.”

“We need to be ready,” said Rutte, “because, at the end of this first quarter of the 21^st century, conflicts are no longer fought at arm’s length; conflict is at our door.

“Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured.”

Rutte also outlined that, with China’s backing, Russia will not exhaust its military resources in Ukraine.

“How is Putin able to continue his war against Ukraine? The answer is China,” Rutte asserted. “China is Russia’s lifeline. China wants to prevent its ally from losing in Ukraine. Without China’s support, Russia could not continue to wage this war.”

In relation to a potential peace plan for Ukraine, Rutte stated, “President Trump wants to end the bloodshed now, and he’s the only one who can get Putin to the negotiating table, so let’s put Putin to the test; let’s see if he really wants peace, or if he prefers the slaughter to continue.”

In mid-December European leaders continued to meet and discuss a potential peace plan with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, the peace plan currently tabled by the Trump Administration would mean that Ukraine would have to withdraw from the eastern Donbas region to create a so-called ‘free economic zone’, while Russian forces would be free remain in the parts of the Donbas they currently occupy: a concession that Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on 11 December Ukraine could not make. Zelenskyy also commented that he could not see how this unoccupied zone would be policed, no doubt believing that Putin would simply exploit this to advance Russian forces further.

Ukraine has called for the entirety of the front line, including in the Donbas, to be frozen in the event of a cease-fire.