Russian President Vladimir Putin has said any foreign troops operating as part of a peacekeeping force in Ukraine would be considered a “legitimate target” by Moscow.
It comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said 26 of Ukraine’s allies had formally committed to deploying troops “by land, sea or air” to help guarantee Kyiv’s security the day after any ceasefire or peace is achieved.
Mr Macron stressed any troops would be deployed to prevent “any new major aggression” and not at the frontline, adding the force does “not have the will or the objective of waging war against Russia”.
Mr Putin quickly poured cold water on the proposals when speaking at an economic forum in Russia’s eastern Vladivostok region on Friday.
Directly responding to Mr Macron’s comments, he said: “If any troops appear there, especially now, during military operations, we proceed from the fact that these will be legitimate targets for their destruction.
“And if decisions are reached that lead to peace, to long-term peace, then I simply do not see any sense in their presence on the territory of Ukraine, full stop.”
Russia has long argued that one of its reasons for going to war in Ukraine was to prevent NATO from admitting Kyiv as a member and placing its forces in Ukraine.
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Speaking today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was important that security guarantees “start working now, during the war, and not only after it ends”.
On Thursday, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Russia had no veto on Western troops being deployed to Ukraine: “Why are we interested in what Russia thinks about troops in Ukraine? It’s a sovereign country. It’s not for them to decide.”
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‘Please come to Moscow’
Mr Putin also addressed the chances of a direct meeting between him Mr Zelesnkyy aimed at ending the war.
Such a proposal looked positive after the Russian met Donald Trump in Alaska last month, but Mr Putin said on Friday he did not see much point in such a meeting because “it will be practically impossible to reach an agreement with the Ukrainian side on key issues”.
However, he reiterated an offer he made earlier this week to host Mr Zelenskyy for talks in Moscow, which Ukraine’s defence minister previously declared as “knowingly unacceptable”.
“I said: ‘I’m ready, please, come, we will definitely provide working conditions and security, a 100% guarantee’,” Mr Putin said.
“But if they tell us: ‘we want to meet with you, but you have to go somewhere else for this meeting’, it seems to me that these are simply excessive requests on us.”
Speaking at a news conference in Paris on Thursday, Mr Zelenskyy said US mediators informed him about Mr Putin’s invitation.
“Our American partners told us that Putin invited me to Moscow, and I believe that if you want to avoid a meeting, you should invite me to Moscow,” he said.
However, he said the fact that the issue of organising a meeting arose was “not bad”.
Drone strikes continue
While talks to end the war continue at a diplomatic level, more heavy drone strikes were recorded across Ukraine.
Kyiv’s air force said Moscow attacked Ukraine overnight with 157 strike and decoy drones, as well as seven missiles of various types.
Air defences shot down or jammed 121 of the drones, it said, but 35 drones and seven missiles still struck 10 locations.
Elsewhere, Russian troops destroyed 92 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to its defence ministry.
Local social media channels in the city of Ryazan, approximately 200 kilometres (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, reported that the city’s Rosneft oil refinery had been targeted. Ryazan’s regional governor said that drone debris had fallen on an “industrial enterprise” but did not give further details.
Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil infrastructure that it says fuels Moscow’s war effort in recent months.
Military analyst Professor Michael Clarke said Ukraine’s campaign on Russia’s oil refineries has been a successful one so far, but doubts it will hurt Moscow’s war machine too much.
“Will that directly affect the war? Probably not. Because the Russian military runs on diesel,” he said.
“It filters through to the war in the sense that it inconveniences and bothers the Russians and reminds the Russian population that this war has a cost to them as well.”
