NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte, in a 2 July interview with Fox News, dismissed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s warning that higher defence spending by member states could “lead to the collapse of the organisation.” Rutte said Lavrov had been Russia’s top diplomat “since the birth of Jesus Christ” and that “nothing useful has come out of his mouth,” urging viewers not to pay attention to the Russian official. Moscow quickly responded. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram that Lavrov’s decades-long tenure “was not in vain if he made the NATO Secretary General remember Jesus Christ,” characterising Rutte’s comments as an awkward attempt to discredit Russian diplomacy. The exchange underscores heightened rhetorical tensions as NATO pushes members to lift defence outlays to at least 2 percent of GDP and expands its ranks in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Lavrov, who has served as foreign minister since 2004, has repeatedly argued that the alliance’s military build-up risks fracturing internal cohesion.