The Russian dictatorship said this Thursday (8) that Western peacekeepers who may be sent to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in the war between the two countries will be considered “legitimate military targets” by the Kremlin.
The warning was made in a statement by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, two days after the UK and French governments signed a declaration of intent on deploying troops to Ukraine and establishing military bases to deter another invasion if a peace deal is reached.
“The Russian Foreign Ministry warns that the deployment of military units and the installation of Western military bases, depots and other infrastructure on Ukrainian territory will qualify as foreign intervention that directly threatens the security of Russia and other European countries,” Zakharova said in the statement.
“All these units and installations will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces. Warnings to this effect have been repeatedly made at the highest level and remain valid,” the spokeswoman said.
“The new militaristic declarations of the so-called Coalition of Volunteers and the Kiev regime are forming a true Axis of war,” he added, in reference to the group being set up by the United Kingdom and France.
In November, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, proposed a 28-point peace plan, including international recognition of the Ukrainian regions of Crimea, Lugansk and Donetsk as Russian territories, which would give Moscow areas that it was unable to conquer on the battlefield, since, although it controls the first two regions completely, it only controls 70% of the third.
Other points of the proposal were that the size of the Ukrainian Armed Forces be limited to 600,000 soldiers (today, they have around 900,000) and that the country include in its Constitution a clause on non-membership of NATO. In return, Ukraine would receive security guarantees against future invasions.
On Christmas Eve, after negotiations with the USA, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented a 20-point counter-proposal, in which Ukraine does not renounce one day joining NATO, nor does it recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and other occupied territories, proposing two options: freezing the current front line in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson or demilitarizing the Donetsk zone that Ukraine still controls and which Moscow claims that it would be protected by international troops, upon approval in a national referendum.
Russia has not yet given a definitive answer on this proposal, but said that it differs “radically” from the document that Moscow had been debating with the United States.
