The Kremlin rejected any situation where foreign troops are stationed in Ukraine to provide security guarantees, according to Russian state media.
He followed an Emmanuel Macron’s commitment that 26 Western allies had officially committed to deploying troops “on land, sea or air” in Ukraine the day after a cease-fire.
After a summit of 35 countries nicknamed the “coalition of willingly”, the French president said that US support would be finalized in the coming days.
President Donald Trump recently said that support in the United States could “probably” arise in the form of air support, and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that he had spoken to the US leader in “Maximum protection for Ukraine”.
However, the hopes of an agreement to put an end to the fighting has decreased since the Vladimir Putin of Russia met Trump in Alaska last month.
Trump also said that the EU should work with the United States to stop imports from Russian oil and gas to stop the “war machine by economic means” in Russia, according to a story of the call from the Finnish phone Alexander Stubb.
The European Union of 27 members has set the objective of putting an end to all imports of gas and oil by the end of 2027. A white house official stressed that Russia had received 1.1 billion euros (954 million pounds sterling; $ 1.3 billion) in sales of the EU in one year, although the real one is much higher.
Moscow has clearly indicated that no Western forces should be deployed in Ukraine and insisted that he should be one of the countries acting as “guarantors” – an idea rejected by kyiv and his allies.
In the remarks published by the Russian state media, the spokesperson for Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, said: “Can Ukraine security guarantees be provided and provided by foreign military contingents, in particular European and American?
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Keir Starmer said the Western allies now had a “unbreakable commitment” to Ukraine, supported by the United States, and had to press Russia to end the war, according to a spokesperson for Downing Street.
Few countries have openly promised to deploy troops on the ground in Ukraine in the event of agreement, and the United States has already excluded such a decision. European diplomats suggested that committing troops at this stage would likely help Putin’s account against the West.
Meanwhile, Russia continued to send troops to Ukraine despite the last attempts to define cease-fire talks, complained Macron.
In the latest violence, two people cleaning the mines were killed Thursday in a Russian attack in northern Ukraine.
Ukraine and its allies think that a cease-fire should be agreed before any attempt to conclude a broader peace agreement, although Russia does not agree.
The German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said after the meeting that the first priority was to guarantee a cease-fire at a summit involving the Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, then to “provide solid security guarantees”.
On Thursday, the senior officials of Zelensky had interviews in Paris with an American special envoy Steve Witkoff.
More than three and a half years after the large -scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Putin said this week that there were “a certain light at the end of the tunnel” and that there are options to guarantee the security of Ukraine in the event that the conflict ends “.
The prospect of a direct meeting involving Putin and Zelensky has become more and more unlikely since it was suggested last month by President Trump.
Putin suggested this week that Zelensky could come to Moscow for conferences, an idea of ​​a “unacceptable” brand by kyiv. The Ukrainian chief said it was the indication that Russia did not really want the meeting to take place.
NATO chief Mark Rutte said Thursday that Russia had no veto on Western troops deployed in Ukraine: “Why are we interested in what Russia thinks of the troops in Ukraine? It is a sovereign country. It is not for them to decide.”
Trump told CBS News on Wednesday that he had been determined to conclude an agreement to end the war and said that he was continuing to have good relations with Putin and Zelensky.
“I think we will understand everything,” he said.
The British Secretary of Defense, John Healey, congratulated Trump, who, according to him, “brought Putin into talks” and “closed any options”.
The Russian chief, who passed on Wednesday with Xi Jinping in China and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, says that the army of his country advances on all fronts in Ukraine.
He warned that without agreement, Moscow was ready to “resolve all our tasks militarily”.
Russia rejected the idea of ​​an initial ceasefire, insisting that its campaign will not end before a complete peace agreement.
A source at the Palais de l’Elysée suggested before Thursday’s talks that there were several historic cease-fire examples which had lasted without a complete peace agreement.
The source highlighted the line of demarcation between North Korea and South Korea, where a cease-fire lasted years with a powerfully armed allied deployment serving as a signal to North Korea. This concept was extremely important for Ukrainians, added the source.
