NATO allies select Netherlands' Rutte as next secretary general

NATO allies on Wednesday selected Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as NATO’s next boss, as the war in Ukraine rages on its doorstep and uncertainty hangs over the United States’ future attitude to the transatlantic alliance.

Rutte’s appointment became a formality after his only rival for the post, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, announced last week that he had quit the race, having failed to gain traction.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg earlier said that the alliance had no plans to deploy forces to Ukraine, despite many of its members supplying Kyiv with weapons since Russia’s invasion.

“NATO has no plans to deploy forces to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said during a visit to Finland, adding that the alliance was seeking “long term financial commitment to ensure that we stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes”.

“Over the last months, we have seen some gaps, some delays in the provision of military support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said, adding: “we need to ensure that that doesn’t happen again.”

The visit marked Stoltenberg’s first to Finland since the country joined NATO in April 2023, prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, thereby leaving decades of military non-alignment behind.

Stoltenberg’s visit came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday joined Western leaders in France to commemorate D-Day.

While there, Zelensky is due to meet US President Joe Biden for talks on how Ukraine can gain background after recent Russian advances.

Asked to comment on the risk of a Russian attack against a Nato member, Stoltenberg replied: “We don’t see an imminent military threat against any NATO ally.”

“This idea that there’s a kind of a countdown to the next war is wrong.”