Senior NATO and Ukrainian officials cite heavy Russian battlefield losses and continued Western backing, including new European funding and military aid packages.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Thursday that Russian forces are suffering losses of up to 30,000 troops per month in Ukraine while achieving only limited territorial gains, according to reporting by The Epoch Times.
Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels following a meeting of alliance defense ministers, Rutte said Moscow’s advances have come at a high cost.
“The Russians are only making very incremental advances,” Rutte said. “It is very incremental against high losses. In some months, up to 30,000 Russians dead. Not seriously wounded. Dead. So these are incredible numbers.”
The remarks were reported by The Epoch Times. U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth did not attend the Brussels meeting.
Rutte also referenced a recent visit to Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, a city briefly occupied by Russian forces in February 2022. He said residents conveyed resolve to continue resisting the invasion.
“They will not give up. We will not give up. Ukraine will not give up,” Rutte said.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who also attended the Brussels meetings, cited what he described as significant Russian troop losses in recent months.
“We see that Russia can’t defeat us on the ground,” Fedorov said.
“Our strategy is working. We eliminated 35,000 Russians in December, 30,000 Russians in January,” he added.
Rutte said the United States is applying sustained pressure on Moscow to bring the conflict to an end. The war began four years ago this month when Russian forces crossed into Ukrainian territory.
“[The U.S. leadership has] always consistently pleaded for Europe doing more, Canada doing more, taking more care of the defense of NATO territory, of course, in conjunction with the United States,” Rutte said before the ministerial meeting.
Asked about Hegseth’s absence, Rutte said, “They have to take care of the whole world. This is the United States.”
“NATO is very important, but there’s also the Western Hemisphere, there’s also the Indo-Pacific, I totally accept it,” he added.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said President Donald Trump had given both Moscow and Kyiv until June to negotiate an agreement to end the war.
The NATO meeting followed a vote in the European Parliament approving a 90 billion euro ($107 billion) loan package for Ukraine covering 2026 and 2027. Separately, the United Kingdom announced a new military assistance package valued at more than 500 million pounds ($683 million), including air defense missiles and related systems.
Estonia’s foreign intelligence service stated in its annual report Tuesday that Russia is portraying interest in peace talks while using negotiation rhetoric as a “tactic to buy time.”
“In his head [Russian President Vladimir Putin] still thinks that he can actually militarily win in [Ukraine] at some point,” the service’s director general, Kaupo Rosin, said in Tallinn.
On Wednesday, NATO unveiled a new initiative called Arctic Sentry aimed at consolidating alliance operations in the Arctic region, including Greenland. Rutte said the project will place all Arctic-related NATO activities under a single command structure to better identify and address security gaps.
“What is really new about it is that for the first time now we will bring everything we do in the Arctic together under one command,” Rutte said, adding that the initiative would improve NATO’s ability to assess needs in Greenland.
Norway’s chief of defense, Gen. Eirik Kristoffersen, warned this week that Russia poses a potential threat to NATO members in northern Scandinavia.
“We don’t exclude a land grab from Russia as part of their plan to protect their own nuclear capabilities, which is the only thing they have left that actually threatens the United States,” Kristoffersen told The Guardian.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email that President Trump has made clear his desire to see the conflict end through negotiations.
“We remain committed to continuing to encourage Russia and Ukraine to negotiate and end this war through diplomacy—the only path to durable peace,” the spokesperson said.
“The United States is engaged in tireless diplomacy to bridge the divide between Moscow and Kyiv and move the parties towards a negotiated set of terms for peace. These discussions are complex and difficult, but, thankfully, ongoing.”