LONDON (Dispatches) -- NATO head Mark Rutte on Monday urged a “quantum leap” in military capabilities including a “400-percent increase” in air and missile defense to shield the alliance against Russia.
NATO needs “a 400-percent increase in air and missile defense” Rutte said In a speech to the Chatham House think-tank in London. “The fact is, we need a quantum leap in our collective defense,” he said.
Rutte met UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday ahead of his speech, their second Downing Street talks since the Labor leader came into power in July 2024.
Rutte’s comments came ahead of a NATO summit in the Netherlands this month.
But they were swiftly condemned by Moscow, which denounced NATO as “an instrument of aggression”.
NATO “is demonstrating itself as an instrument of aggression and confrontation”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
U.S. President Donald Trump is pressing alliance members to announce a major boost in their military budgets.
He is pushing NATO members to increase their military spending to five percent of their gross domestic product (GDP), up from the current target of two percent. 
NATO members have been scrambling to bolster their military capabilities since the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out in February 2022.
Britain announced plans last week to build up to 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines and six munitions factories to rearm the country in response to what it said were threats from Russia.
Earlier this year, Starmer’s government pledged to increase military spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, but has not yet set a firm timeline for further hikes.
“NATO has to become a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance,” Rutte added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a new naval strategy which aims to fully restore Russia’s position as one of the world’s leading maritime powers, Kremlin aide Nikolai Patrushev said in an interview published on Monday.
Russia has the world’s third most powerful navy after China and the United States, according to most public rankings, though the navy has suffered a series of high-profile losses in the Ukraine war.
Patrushev, a former KGB officer who served with Putin in the northern Russian city of St Petersburg during Soviet times, said the new naval strategy - entitled “The Strategy for the Development of the Russian Navy up to 2050” - had been approved by Putin in late May.