Emmanuel Macron says Europe ready to provide such guarantees at meeting in Paris today

Nato’s Rutte is now talking about Trump and giving him credit for motivating some countries to step up and increase their defence spending.

He says:

“Do you really think if he would not have been elected president united states, that Italy, Canada, Spain, Slovenia, Belgium and Luxembourg would have committed to do 2% this year? Do you really think that the whole of Nato would have committed to 5% committed to 5% including 3.5% core defence spending at the Nato Summit in The Hague?”

“He took that leadership role, and it is not easy to solve this, but he is absolutely committed to doing that.

We are now working on these security guarantees necessary to make sure that also Zelenskyy knows that if he starts into conversations with the Russians, hopefully soon, that he has the backup and that he knows that that the security guarantees will in place so that Russia, after a peace deal, will never ever again to try to invade Ukraine, so no repeat of Budapest and no repeat of the Minsk agreement.”

We are stepping up. The Russians noticed. They hate it, and I love it.