The secretary general of NATO will call for a 400% increase in funding for air and missile defences, during a speech in London today.
Mark Rutte has met with Sir Keir Starmer and John Healey, the defence secretary, this afternoon.
It comes ahead of a summit in The Hague later this month, when the UK and its NATO allies are expected to agree to pledge to spend 5% of GDP on defence and related areas.
Currently, the government is committed to spend 2.5% GDP on defence from April 2027, with a goal of increasing this to 3% over the next parliament.
Sky News understands the government will in fact increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP within a decade to keep the US on side.
‘Hope is not a strategy’
Speaking at Chatham House, Rutte will call for a “quantum leap in our collective defence”.
He will say that “danger will not disappear even when the war in Ukraine ends”.
The call for a 400% increase in air and missile defence will come because of how Russia “delivers terror from above”.