Putin says foreign troops deployed to Ukraine would be legitimate targets
Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Friday that all foreign troops deployed in Ukraine before a peace agreement was signed would be considered “legitimate targets” by the forces of Moscow.
Putin’s comments occurred a few hours after European leaders resumed their commitment to a potential peacekeeping force, a prospect that Moscow has described on several occasions as “unacceptable”.
“If troops appear there, especially now, while the fighting is underway, we assume that they will be legitimate targets,” he said during a panel of the eastern economic forum of the Russian city of Vladivostok, in the East Eastern.
Putin also rejected the idea of the peacekeeping forces in Ukraine after a last peace agreement, saying that “no one should doubt” that Moscow would respect a treaty to stop his large -scale invasion of his neighbor.
He said security guarantees would be necessary for both Russia and Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said that Moscow would need “legally binding documents” to describe these agreements. “Of course, you cannot just take the floor of anyone for something,” he told the argument of the actuality press in Russian I Fakty.
Putin’s comments followed by French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks on Thursday that 26 of Ukraine’s allies are committed to deploying troops as a “comfort force” for Ukraine once the end of the fighting.
Macron spoke after a meeting in Paris of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, a group of 35 countries that support Ukraine. He said that 26 of the countries were committed to deploying troops in Ukraine – or maintaining a presence on land, at sea or in the air – to guarantee the security of the country the day after the ceasefire or peace.
Addressing participants in the International Economic Conference The Ambrosetti Forum on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was important that security guarantees to work now, during the war, and not only after its end “.
He said he could not disclose more details because they are “sensitive and relate to the military sphere”.
Drone strikes continue
Russian troops attacked Ukraine overnight with 157 strike drones and lure, as well as seven missiles of various types, Ukraine reported on Friday. Air defenses have shot or blocked 121 of drones, he said.
An attack damaged several residential buildings in Dnipro in the center of Ukraine, wrote the head of the Serhii Lysak regional administration on social networks. The regional administration also said that an unpertified “installation” had been burnt down in the strike, but had not given more details.
Lysak shared photos of residential buildings with damaged roofs, glass shards lying on the floor and people wearing wooden planks to cover broken windows. “Private houses have been damaged. Windows in apartment buildings have been broken,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, in the Ukrainian region of Chernihiv north of kyiv, Russian drones attacked infrastructure in the Novhorod-Siversek district, leaving at least 15 electricity colonies, local authorities reported.
Elsewhere, Russian troops destroyed 92 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Defense Ministry of Russia announced on Friday. The local social networks of the city of Ryazan, about 125 miles southeast of Moscow, reported that the Rosneft oil refinery was targeted. They shared videos that seemed to show a fire against the night sky.
Local governor Pavel Malkov said that drone debris had fallen into an “industrial enterprise” but had not given more details, warning residents not to publish images of air defenses on social networks.
