NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte refused to comment on allegations that a future peace plan of the United States provides for the freezing of Ukraine's membership in the alliance, explaining that Putin should not know everything that is being discussed in NATO.

"We have one problem here. That is that we have democracy and it means that journalists ask questions to the politicians coming and me as the Secretary General, and that is great. The big difference of course with Moscow where Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is not facing this. So, he can keep his ideas close to himself. And I don't want him to be wiser than usual. He is sitting there in the armchair awaiting what I am going to say here and what others will say in NATO," he said at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, commenting at the request of journalists on the suggestion that one of the possible points of the U.S. peace plan is to postpone Ukraine's entry into NATO.

The Secretary General said he knew two things.

"One, we have to make sure that Ukraine is in the best possible position whenever talks will start about the future of this conflict. […] And the peace deal or whatever it will be has to be durable, enduring, has to be concrete, carved in stone that he [Putin] will never ever will try to attack one square kilometer or one square mile of Ukraine. These two things are for me crucial. And then we can easily brainstorm about the best way forward, including NATO, other countries getting involved, how to do that. But again, this is all part of future talks within the alliance, and then to a certain extent probably also with him. But let's not make him wiser than he's already," he said.