No, NATO chief Mark Rutte didn't say Ukraine is an ‘US territory'
The video, in which Rutte speaks in English, has been subtitled in Russian to falsely quote Rutte as saying the NATO Alliance must ensure 'Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will never, ever again try to take away a single square kilometre of Ukrainian territory from the Americans".
Euroverify has detected the video circulating widely on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram TikTok and X, and captioned in Bulgarian, English, Dutch and German.
But a closer look at the original video clearly shows that this is disinformation.
Rutte, in fact, says that the Alliance needs to ensure that 'Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will never, ever again try to catch one square kilometre — or, for the Americans, one square mile – of Ukrainian territory".
In other words, he mentions 'the Americans' only in reference to the imperial system of measurement commonly used in the United States.
At no point during the interview does he describe Ukraine as American or American-controlled territory.
The video circulating has been deceptively cut and captioned to misrepresent Rutte's intervention, which came during an interview with Munich Security Conference CEO Benedikt Franke on the first day of the June 24-25 NATO summit in The Hague.
Disinformation originated on Telegram
Euroverify detected the first instances of these false claims on pro-Russian accounts on Telegram, the messaging app founded by Russian-born Pavel Durov.
Some of the posts include the miscaptioned and miscut video, while others simply relay the false quote.
The posts have been viewed millions of times, according to our estimates.
One post alleges Rutte called Ukraine "American Land".
The manipulated video has then been amplified across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X, most notably in Russian but also in Bulgarian, English, Dutch and German.
It has also been picked up by Moscow-based daily newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets, a state-controlled outlet.
Part of pro-Russian disinformation playbook
The technique is characteristic of pro-Russian disinformation actors, who often take interventions made by Western leaders out of context to sow distrust.
Such false claims often originate on pro-Moscow Telegram accounts and then spread onto other, more widely used social platforms.
In this case, the manipulated video clearly aims to corroborate one of Putin's stated justifications for invading Ukraine, namely that Ukraine is not neutral and that NATO and the US are trying to gain a foothold in its territory.
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