President Zelensky Discusses Support To Security Guarantees Ukraine With NATO Secretary General And European Leaders

President Zelensky with NATO Secretary General Rutte. (Twitter/@ZelenskyyUa)

JAKARTA - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and other European leaders on Wednesday to get immediate assistance for support on the battlefield, discussing long-term security guarantees.

President Zelensky said talks with Rutte in Brussels, Belgium and discussions with 27 European Union national leaders were then "an excellent opportunity to talk about security guarantees for Ukraine for today and for the future", quoted by Reuters December 18.

While European leaders insisted they focused on Ukraine's urgent need, officials began discussing ways to ensure the country's security after the war ended, including a possible deployment of European troops.

"An important and highly substantive meeting focused on strengthening air defenses for Ukraine and ensuring the reliability of the peace we are working on together to achieve," he tweeted on social media X regarding a meeting with NATO Secretary General Rutte.

NATO "will do everything it can to ensure Ukraine is as strong as possible as we turn to more active diplomacy," he said.

Secretary General Rutte said talks would be focused on ensuring Ukraine was "in the best position" whenever it decided to enter peace talks, providing more air defense systems and other weapons to increase Kyiv's resistance to the Russian invasion.

NATO did not say who would attend the talks. But diplomats said they would include German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish President Andrzej Duda, French and British Foreign Ministers, as well as top EU officials Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa.