Moscow: Russia announced Wednesday that it views European proposals for providing security guarantees to Ukraine negatively and firmly pushes back on any NATO troop presence on its neighbor’s territory. US President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine are very important, with the hope that these efforts will continue, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
According to Qatar News Agency, Peskov emphasized that the deployment of European forces in Ukraine would equate to NATO’s presence on Ukrainian soil, a development Russia has sought to prevent from the outset. He added that the advancement and penetration of NATO military infrastructure into Ukraine have been among the root causes of this conflict from the beginning. Therefore, Russia has a negative view of these discussions.
The security guarantees are one of the most important topics, but Russia sees no benefit in discussing them publicly, Peskov noted, affirming that the US-Russia Summit that was convened this month in Alaska between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was extremely objective, constructive, and productive.
All parties concur in the importance of including the security guarantees for Ukraine in any potential peace deal, but they totally disagree about the format that these guarantees should take. Russia stresses that these guarantees should be among the nations that guarantee Ukraine’s security and affirms that it seeks to revive a proposal discussed between the two sides in 2022, during the early weeks of the war; however, Ukraine has pushed back against this proposal, considering that it would grant Russia effective veto power over any foreign military support provided to Ukraine.
As such, Ukraine’s European allies are working to prepare a set of security guarantees that aim to protect Ukraine from any potential confrontation with Russia in the future as part of a potential peaceful settlement.