At the end of June 2025, according to RuNet, Mark Rutte allegedly admitted: Ukrainian lands belong to the United States. We checked whether he made such a statement.
June 25 in the Telegram channel “Russia now”(179,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) reported: “NATO Secretary General recognized Ukraine as American territory. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the ceasefire agreement in Ukraine must be so strong that Putin will never again be able to take away a single kilometer of Ukrainian territory from the Americans... Clearly and clearly: Ukrainians are fighting for American soil.” In the Telegram channel "Ukraine.ru"(125,000 views) added that this is not a joke, but "Tsargrad-TV" (79,000) called Rutte's alleged words a Freudian slip. “Frankly about who owns that part of Ukraine that is temporarily not controlled by Russia,” wrote the channel “Alexander Semchenko"(76,000 views).
Similar posts were also posted by Telegram channels “KB"(250,000 views), "Evil proof️"(220,000), "Russia 360°"(199,000), "Uncle Slava"(192,000), "Belarusian security officer"(159,000), "Sheikh Tamir"(124,000), "Large-caliber commotion"(112,000), "Border Guard from Hell"(107,000), "Ostashko! Important" (twice: 96,000 And 99,000), "Cat Kostyan"(84,000) and many others. Publications about the alleged Rutte quote are found in “VKontakte", Facebook, Instagram, X and other social networks. At least twice about the “bold statement” of the NATO Secretary General wrote newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets"
In some publications, in addition to the quote attributed to Rutte, there is also a short video with an excerpt from the speech of the NATO Secretary General. In this video, he speaks English, and the translation of his words is done in the form of Russian subtitles. How reported, at the recent NATO summit, Rutte allegedly said:
“And we must do everything to ensure that any ceasefire or peace agreement on Ukraine is durable and strong so that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will never, ever again try to take away a single square kilometer of Ukrainian territory from the Americans.”
From 24 to 25 June 2025, the next summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was held in The Hague. On the first day of the forum, Rutte had an almost half-hour public conversation with Benedikt Franke - Deputy Chairman and Director General of the Munich Security Conference. Video distributed on RuNet - fragment broadcasts of that dialogue, available on the verified NATO YouTube channel. On other channels you can find a conversation between Rutte and Franke, published separately, and on the alliance website - her transcript.
As heard both in the viral excerpt with Russian subtitles and in the original broadcast on the NATO channel, the secretary general of the alliance did not declare that Ukrainian lands belong to the United States. In fact, Rutte said:
“At the same time, we need to make sure that Ukraine has everything it needs to stay in the fight, that Ukraine will be in the strongest position possible when the real negotiations begin. Therefore, I am not talking about the negotiations that this Russian historian is now conducting, talking about the events of a thousand years ago and who is responsible for what - this has now happened twice in Istanbul (meaning the assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, who headed the Russian delegation at those negotiations. - Ed.). This is not a serious approach. And I am very proud of the Ukrainians that they sent a team of senior officials there: with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Defense, the Chief of the [General] Staff (in fact, part of the Ukrainian delegation to the negotiations in Istanbul in May And June 2025 included the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Deputy Chiefs of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. — Approx. ed.) - so they took it seriously. But Russia was clearly not serious. But I hope serious negotiations will begin in the near future. And then we must make sure that whatever the long-term ceasefire or peace agreement for Ukraine is, it will be lasting, it will be durable. That Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will never, never again try to seize a single square kilometer (or for the Americans, not a single square mile) of Ukrainian territory"
In other words, Rutte was only talking about potential guarantees that would help prevent future Russian attempts to seize Ukrainian territories. Since in the USA they do not use metric, A imperial measurement system, especially for American listeners, the NATO Secretary General gave a unit of area that they understood.
According to the TGStat service, the video originally had incorrect Russian subtitles appeared June 24 at 17:33 Moscow time in the “Soloviev” Telegram channel. First, the caption to the video, lasting 2.5 minutes, with Rutte’s speech ended like this (spelling preserved): “And we must do everything to ensure that any ceasefire or peace agreement on Ukraine is durable and strong so that Vladimir Putin will never, never again try to take away a single square kilometer of Ukrainian territory from the Americans.”
However, then the post with the video was five times edited. The very next morning (June 25 at 06:56) the text became: “And we must do everything to ensure that any ceasefire or peace agreement in Ukraine is durable and strong so that Vladimir Putin will never, never again try to take away a single square kilometer... or, for the Americans, a single mile of Ukrainian territory.” In addition to the caption, the subtitles have also been changed.
Thus, Mark Rutte did not declare that the territories of Ukraine belong to the United States. In fact, in his speech, the NATO Secretary General expressed the hope that in the future, after a ceasefire, Russia will not try to occupy a single square kilometer of Ukrainian land. Especially for the American audience, Rutte clarified his phrase by using the unit of measurement of area in the imperial system of measures. The incorrect translation of Rutte’s statement went viral after a post by the Solovyov Telegram channel, where the error was corrected some time later. However, by that time video with the distorted words of politics they have already managed post other pro-Kremlin resources.
Cover photo: @SecGenNATO (X)
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