I don't trust him: NATO chief says Putin lied to him
Photo: Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General (nato.int)
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says he does not trust Russian President Vladimir Putin, as the latter lied to him during personal conversations, The Guardian reports.
"I have not changed my views of Vladimir Putin. I don't trust the guy," Rutte stressed.
He recalled that he had talked to Putin a lot after the downing of flight MH17 in July 2014, when a passenger plane was shot down by a Russian Buk missile system over the temporarily occupied part of the Donetsk region. At the time, Rutte was serving as Prime Minister of the Netherlands.
"Putin telling me that he was not present in the Donbas, and that he had no dealings in Ukraine, and this, that and the other. These were all lies," Rutte emphasized.
According to him, Putin sought to divide the West, but instead, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO, and the alliance has adopted a new defense spending target of 5% of GDP.
“So, he cannot be very happy, and he should not be very happy," Rutte added.
MH17 plane crash
In 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by a Russian Buk surface-to-air missile.
All 298 people on board were killed. Most of the victims were Dutch citizens, along with passengers from Malaysia, Australia, and other countries.
An international investigative team (JIT) concluded that the Buk missile system used in the attack belonged to the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces and had been transported into Ukraine from Russian territory.
In 2022, a court in The Hague found three suspects guilty of downing the plane and killing its passengers, sentencing them in absentia to life imprisonment. Despite overwhelming evidence, Russia continues to deny responsibility.
Notably, on May 12 of this year, the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization officially held Russia responsible for the MH17 tragedy.
