Speaking at an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the NATO chief said the alliance must invest more in defence, ramp up defence industrial production and take on a bigger share of spending on help for Ukraine.
"On Ukraine, we need US also to stay involved," Rutte said.
"If this new Trump administration is willing to keep on supplying Ukraine from its defence industrial base, the bill will be paid by the Europeans, I'm absolutely convinced of this, we have to be willing to do that," he added.
The secretary general's comments came after US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that the European Union should be doing more to support Ukraine.
Rutte also said it was vital Russia did not win as it could result in Russian President Vladimir Putin "high fiving" the leaders of North Korea and China.
"We really have to step up and not scale back our support for Ukraine," the NATO chief said.
"The frontline is moving in the wrong direction," he said.
Zaporizhzhia, a strategic industrial city, has come under frequent attack by Russian forces. (EPA PHOTO)
On the battlefront, Russia unleashed a drone and missile strike on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing one, wounding 31 others and leaving tens of thousands without power or heat, officials said.
The attack destroyed an energy facility and cut power to more than 20,000 residents and heat to some 17,000, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov.
He said Russian forces struck the city with drones first, then with ballistic missiles during an air-raid alert lasting more than six hours.
Among the wounded was a two-month-old infant as well as rescuers who had responded to the first wave of the attack, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on social media.
Early on Thursday, police and rescue workers combed through the rubble of a decimated apartment building and helped evacuate elderly residents. One building was destroyed and another 30 were damaged, Fedorov said.
A resident who was searching the gutted remains of his apartment described the attack.
"I flew off the couch to get dressed, and, running to the cabinet, I was covered in debris, after which I climbed out and heard my wife screaming," Serhiy, 35, said.
A Zaporizhzhia residential building was damaged by a Russian missile attack on Thursday. (AP PHOTO)
Zaporizhzhia, a strategic industrial city near front-line fighting, has come under frequent attack by Russian forces.
Kyiv's air force said Russia had fired four ballistic missiles at the city, part of a mass overnight attack on Ukraine that also included 92 drones.
Air defences shot down 57 and another 27 were "locationally lost", it added.
Russia has carried out regular air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities behind the front line of its three-year-old invasion, targeting the country's weakened energy grid in particular.
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Moscow's forces had attacked Ukraine's energy system 1200 times since 2022.
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