NATO chief outlines first step for Ukraine to resume talks with Russia

"Let’s not be naïve about Putin. Just look at what happened in Bucha. So, if a peace agreement is reached, it must be sustainable. We must ensure that he never, ever conquers even a single square kilometre of Ukraine again," he said.

Rutte also outlined the steps needed to achieve this.

"Step one: we must ensure that Ukraine is in the best possible position. We must continue to support them (the Ukrainians) with weapons and train soldiers. And if they ever want to make peace, they must bring Putin to the negotiating table," the NATO Secretary General stated.

At the same time, Rutte was unable to describe in detail how these discussions would proceed.

"I already have ideas of what this composition could look like. But we don't want to make Putin smarter than he is. We will reveal a little secret here. Only the end is known: after this, Putin will never try again," he assured.

Ukraine-Russia negotiations

Recently, the topic of resuming negotiations about the war in Ukraine has been discussed with growing intensity.

It was recently reported that US President Donald Trump is having "very serious talks" with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, political analyst Maxim Nesvitaylov from the Centre for Scaling Technological Solutions, in a comment to the RBC-Ukraine YouTube channel, did not rule out that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to exclude Ukraine from the talks and negotiate the war's end with the US.

However, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as stated in an interview with the Associated Press, excluding Ukraine from the US-Russia talks to end the war would be "very dangerous." Kyiv and Washington should continue negotiations to develop a ceasefire plan.