On Wednesday, November 13, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte discussed with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at NATO headquarters Russia's involvement of North Korean troops and further support for Ukraine.

“We have to do more to make sure that Ukraine can stay in the fight and is able to roll back as much as possible the Russian onslaught and to prevent Putin from being successful in Ukraine. Particularly, this is something we also discussed this morning, because now with the North Koreans being active in [the war against] Ukraine,” Rutte said while talking to the press in Brussels on Wednesday.

He stressed that the deployment of soldiers from the DPRK poses an additional threat to Ukraine, but at the same time Putin “has to pay for it.”

“And he is paying for this by technology, for example, missile technology going to North Korea. And that is presenting a threat not only to the European side of NATO, but also to the US mainland, to South Korea to Japan,” the Secretary General said.

Thus, as he stressed, “he Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific: these are not two separate theatres,” and what is happening in Ukraine has an impact now globally.

“That means that we have to stay the course, that we have to ramp up defence production on the US side here in Europe. That we have to do more in terms of spending, and that we have to do more to make sure that Ukraine can prevail,” Rutte noted.