Rutte says he does not take Russia's Kaliningrad nuclear threat seriously

NATO's Secretary General, Mark Rutte, played down Russia's nuclear warning over the Kaliningrad exclave on Wednesday, saying the alliance faces no pressing danger and accusing Moscow of trying to draw attention away from setbacks in Ukraine.

Speaking in Brussels at a defence and security conference hosted by Euronews, Rutte said the alliance had long readied itself for exactly this kind of scenario and remained capable of defending every part of its member states' territory.

His comments came after Russia's embassy in Belgium sent NATO a formal warning that Moscow would use every weapon at its disposal, nuclear arms included, to stop the alliance from cutting Kaliningrad off from the rest of Russian territory. Rutte declined to detail what the letter contained, saying that was for Moscow to reveal.

He called on Russia to drop what he termed unhelpful nuclear signalling and, above all, to halt its war against Ukraine, which he characterised as unprovoked aggression. Rutte also dismissed any prospect of a genuine nuclear escalation against the Baltic states, arguing that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has no path to defeating the alliance militarily.

Rutte put Russian battlefield losses at roughly 43,000 soldiers a month, killed or severely injured, and said Ukraine's military position had improved markedly compared with a year earlier as Western support continued. He tied Moscow's Kaliningrad rhetoric to those battlefield setbacks, saying it was meant to fracture allied unity and pull focus away from Ukraine.

Separately, Rutte told Interfax he expects American-led diplomacy to eventually produce a settlement to the war, though he could not say whether that would happen before winter and noted that Russia currently shows little appetite for negotiations. Wars end with peace agreements, he said, and reaching one always requires negotiators on both sides.