ANKARA

The NATO secretary general on Thursday reiterated the need to strengthen Ukraine before any peace talks start.

“Clearly, what we need to achieve is for Ukraine to get in the best possible position when talks start, and then to make sure that when talks end on peace in Ukraine, that the outcome is enduring, is durable,” Mark Rutte told a joint news conference with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in Brussels.

“We need to continue the military support,” he added.

Rutte said a “joint structure between Ukraine and NATO” will start next week in Poland to make sure that both sides “capture all the lessons and all the insights from what” is being done in Ukraine.

Umerov, for his part, stressed that his country was “continuing” the fight.

“We are strong, we are capable, we are able, we will deliver,” he said, and thanked NATO countries for their support.

The minister said Ukraine’s focus was “security assistance,” and added: “The US is with us, continuing security assistance, NATO is taking over our security assistance and training … We are thankful to NATO and the leadership of NATO.”  

'Any peace deal should be implemented by Europeans, Ukrainians'

Ahead of the NATO defense ministers meeting, the EU foreign policy chief said that "any (peace) deal behind our backs will not work."

"We shouldn't take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started," Kaja Kallas said in her doorstep speech. "If there is an agreement made behind our backs, it will simply not work because for any kind of deal, any kind of agreement, you need Europeans to implement this deal; you need the Ukrainians to implement this."

Regarding the security guarantees for Ukraine, Kallas said: "Membership in NATO is the strongest security guarantee there is. And actually it's also the cheapest security guarantee there is."

"If we are saying that, you know, it's not going to be NATO membership, but it's going to be some other security guarantees, then the question needs to be answered by everybody, what are these security guarantees?" she said. 

US President Donald Trump, after speaking to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the phone, said they agreed to start negotiations to end the three-year-long Ukraine war "immediately." He also spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The phone calls came after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said a return to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders – when Russia annexed Crimea – was unrealistic and that the US does not see NATO membership for Kyiv as part of the solution.

European leaders have since insisted that Kyiv and Europe should be involved in any peace discussions.