Washington DC: NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday warned India, China and Brazil of severe secondary sanctions if they continue to trade with Russia, reported Reuters. Rutte made these remarks a day after US President Donald Trump announced new weapons, including Patriot missiles, for Ukraine amid the ongoing war with Russia, and he also threatened sanctions on buyers of Russian exports.
"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 told reporters during meetings with US Senators.
"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," he added as quoted by Reuters. Meanwhile, Rutte also also Europe would arrange funds to put Ukraine in a better position.
When asked about the discussion on providing long-range missiles to Ukraine, the NATO chief said that the matter was not discussed with Trump on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Republican US Senator Thom Tillis praised Trump for announcing new weapons for Ukraine. However, Tillis said that he was worried about the 50-day delay. For the unversed, Trump threatened Russia with 100 per cent tariffs with a '50-day grace period' condition.
As per Tillis, Putin would use these 50 days to win the war or would try to be in a better position for the peace agreement.
"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," the US Senator added as quoted by the global news agency.
