Rutte: China, Others Could Be Hit by Secondary Sanctions on Russia
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Wednesday that Brazil, China, and India could face severe sanctions if they continue to do business with Russia after a 50-day deadline imposed by the US.
"My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard," Rutte said to media in the US. "So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way.”
When asked about long-range missiles in the recent arms package, Rutte said weapons sold by the US to NATO and then provided to Ukraine will be "both defensive and offensive. So there's all kinds of weapons, but we have not discussed in detail yesterday with the president. This is really being worked through now by the Pentagon, by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, together with the Ukrainians."
Republican Senator Thom Tillis said he approves of the track taken by the US regarding Russia, but is worried "Putin would try to use the 50 days to win the war, or to be better positioned to negotiate a peace agreement after having murdered and potentially collected more ground as a basis for negotiation. So we should look at the current state of Ukraine today and say, no matter what you do over the next 50 days, any of your gains are off the table.”
