Putin threatens to target any Western troops in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that any Western forces deployed to Ukraine would be a “legitimate” target for Moscow’s army, a day after Kyiv’s allies said they had committed to a troop presence in the event of a peace deal.

Two dozen countries, led by France and Britain, pledged Thursday to join a “reassurance” force on land, at sea and in the air to patrol any agreement to end the conflict, unleashed by Russia in February 2022.

Tens of thousands have been killed in three-and-a-half years of fighting, which has forced millions from their homes and destroyed much of eastern and southern Ukraine in Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.

Kyiv says security guarantees, backed by Western troops, are crucial to any agreement, in order to ensure Russia does not relaunch its offensive in the future.

“If some troops appear there, especially now during the fighting, we proceed from the premise that they will be legitimate targets,” Putin says at an economic forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok.

He adds that the deployment of such a force was not conducive to long-term peace and said Ukraine’s closer military ties with the West were one of what he calls the “root causes” of the conflict.

Ukraine’s allies have not revealed any specific details of the plan, including how many troops it would involve and how specific countries would contribute. The troops would not be deployed “on the front line” but aim to “prevent any new major aggression”, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

“We have today 26 countries who have formally committed — some others have not yet taken a position — to deploy as a ‘reassurance force’ troops in Ukraine, or be present on the ground, in the sea, or in the air,” Macron told reporters on Thursday, standing alongside Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky hailed the move: “I think that today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious concrete step.”