NATO Chief Says Continuing Business With Russia Can Hit India, China, Brazil 'Very Hard'

New Delhi: NATO secretary general Mark Rutte has warned that countries such as India, Brazil and China could be affected by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia.

"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 on Tuesday (June 15), a day after he met with US President Donald Trump, reported Reuters.

Rutte made the comments during his meeting with senators in the US Congress.

Earlier, Trump had announced new weapons for Ukraine and also threatened "biting" secondary tariffs of 100% on the buyers of Russian exports unless there is a peace deal in 50 days.

"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," NATO chief Rutte said on Tuesday.

Rutte added that Europe would find the money and ensure that Ukraine was in the best possible position in peace talks. He said that as per the agreement with Trump, the US would now "massively" supply Ukraine with weapons "not just air defense, also missiles, also ammunition paid for by the Europeans."

"It is both defensive and offensive. So there's all kinds of weapons, but we have not discussed in detail yesterday with the president. This is really being worked through now by the Pentagon, by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, together with the Ukrainians," said Rutte.

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