Russia’s Putin could be the “man of the year” of NATO: Senator Graham

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has made more to strengthen and unite NATO than to the Member States, the United States Republican Senator said on Saturday, Lindsey Graham, Munich’s security conference on Saturday.

“If I were nominating someone to be the man of the NATO year, it would be Putin,” Graham said while participating in an MSC panel that included the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the American senator Jeanne Shaheen.

“He has done more to help NATO than NATO. We have two new members (Sweden and Finland). We are talking about spending more, no less. Therefore, he has made a serious calculation error,” said Graham.

Graham, a long -standing ally of US President Donald Trump, said a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine should include the condition that, if Russia invades Ukraine again in the future, Ukraine, he would be granted automatic and immediate membership of the NATO Military Alliance.

“I think if he understood ‘that you do this again, your worst nightmare of Ukraine in NATO is a certainty’ (then that) would be a deterrent,” said Graham, president of the Senate Committee on the Budget.

Graham’s comments occur when the debate is enraged on the substance of peace conversations between Ukraine and Russia, which Trump announced last week, and what an agreement could involve. The European members of NATO were stunned by the president’s announcement and have expressed concern that Washington has left negotiations.

Separately, NATO chief Mark Rutte commented on Saturday that the European members of the Military Alliance had to stop complaining about being aside when it comes to conversations and discussions of peace about the future of Ukraine.

“It enters the debate, not complaining … but when you reach concrete ideas,” he told MSC.

The NATO chief also confirmed that the Alliance would reach a new agreement for the defense expenses objectives when the members meet in June for a summit in The Hague, Netherlands.

The Trump administration has suggested Ukraine that 50% of the property of rare land minerals in the country was granted and pointed out an opening to deploying US troops There to protect them if there is an agreement with Russia to end the war, according to an NBC news report that quotes anonymous US officials.

Instead of paying for the minerals, the property agreement would be a way for Ukraine to compensate for Washington for the billions of dollars in military aid that has provided Kiev during the war, two of the officials said, two of the officials said, NBC News reported on Saturday.

Senator Graham supported the possible mineral agreement, calling him a possible “change of play” for Ukraine and a “nightmare” for Putin when he addressed the delegates in the MSC.

“This mineral agreement between the United States and Ukraine is a change of play, because President Trump can go to the American people (and) say that” Ukraine is not a burden, it is a benefit. “They are sitting on top of billions of dollars in Minerals that we can all benefit when lining with the West, “he said.

“I told President Trump, that it can be the former Soviet Union, it can be the Russian Empire, but I know it goes after money. Do not let it steal what Ukraine has to enrich himself, because that is like defining Police.

Graham urged European allies to support that agreement, saying: “To be better to seek this mineral agreement.”

The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has indicated his willingness to enter an agreement when it comes to the rare earth deposits of Ukraine, affirming last week that he was ready to “make an agreement” with the United States on minerals to Change of help.