The deployment of Western forces would only aim to prevent Kiev’s defeat, Rodion Miroshnik has said
Any Western peacekeepers deployed to Ukraine without Moscow’s approval would become legitimate military targets, senior Russian diplomat Rodion Miroshnik has said.
The statement was made in response to EU Military Committee Chairman Robert Brieger’s interview on Saturday with Die Welt, in which the general suggested that a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict could be enforced by EU and international peacekeepers under a UN mandate.
“Any contingent entering the territory of Ukraine without the consent and permission of Russia is a military target with quite understandable consequences,” Miroshnik wrote on Telegram on Sunday.
“Why pretend? The attempts to invent ‘peacekeepers’ are not at all for establishing peace, but only attempts to use pseudo-humane methods to save [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky’s Kiev regime from defeat?!” he said.
Zelensky insists that at least 200,000 European soldiers would need to be deployed to enforce a ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow. “From all the Europeans? 200,000, it’s a minimum. It’s a minimum, otherwise it’s nothing,” he said last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In addition, Zelensky ruled out acquiescing to one of Moscow’s key demands, cutting the country’s military to a fifth of its current strength.
The subject of a Western peacekeeping force in Ukraine has resurfaced in recent weeks, as US President Donald Trump has vowed to push for a swift end to the conflict. Earlier in January, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer both made statements about potentially putting boots on the ground in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force. In January, Zelensky said he discussed the possibility with French President Emmanuel Macron, who floated the possibility of sending Western troops almost a year ago, prompting an outcry from other leaders.
Moscow has rejected the idea of Western peacekeepers in Ukraine.
Russia is “not satisfied” with proposals to postpone Ukraine’s NATO accession or “to introduce a peacekeeping contingent of ‘British and European forces’ into Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said late last month.
While Moscow is ready to resume peace talks with Kiev, it has stated that it will not allow a temporary freeze to the conflict, which would only serve to provide Ukraine breathing room to rearm.
Any peace deal would have to be backed by “strong, legally binding agreements” addressing the root causes of the conflict, with mechanisms preventing violations of the agreements, Lavrov said.
Moscow has insisted that Kiev must give up its ambitions to join NATO, demilitarize, denazify, and abandon plans to obtain nuclear weapons.
