NATO hypocrisy exposed: Secretary General targets India for buying Russian fuel, NATO members, his own country do so, details...

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has exposed itself and its hypocrisy over doing business with Russia. Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of the 32-nation defence bloc, threatened that those countries that do business with Moscow may find the tariff rates as high as 100%. He also said that the governments of India, Brazil and other such countries should ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war with Ukraine if they do not want the high tariff rates being imposed by the US. However, Rutte completely ignored the fact that almost all member states, including his own country, the Netherlands, are doing business with Russia and buying fossil fuels like crude oil and natural gas.

Mark Rutte's Netherlands buys Russian gas

Mark Rutte's announcement appears to be ridiculous considering the fact that his own country, the Netherlands, bought Russian fossil fuel worth $18 billion during the period from February 24, 2022, to February 26, 2023. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. 

NATO member states buy Russian gas

According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Russia has sold fossil fuels worth more than $315 billion since the beginning of the Ukraine War. It has sold nearly half, or $149 billion, to the EU nations and even more to the NATO countries. It is interesting to note that the EU’s largest economy and one of the founding members of NATO, Germany, is the second-largest importer of Russian fossil fuels. It imported natural gas worth more than $12 billion. Besides, Germany also bought crude oil worth $13.3 billion and coal worth $0.7 billion. In total, Germany purchased Russian fuel worth $26. billion from February 2022 to February 2023. 

Other NATO member states buying Russian fossil fuel are Turkey ($25.9 billion), the Netherlands ($18 billion), Italy ($14.8 billion), Poland ($12.1 billion), France ($9.5 billion), Belgium ($9.2 billion), and Hungary ($8.6 billion). Other NATO countries that buy fuel from Russia include Bulgaria ($6.4 billion), Slovakia ($6.2 billion), Spain ($5.8Vz billion), Austria ($5.7 billion), Greece ($ 4.5 billion), and the Czech Republic ($4,2 billion). 

NATO Secretary General warns India

After meeting US President Donald Trump, Mark Rutte told reports,  "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." He added, "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."