Russia rejects possible deployment of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine

Russia has rejected the possible deployment of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) peacekeepers in Ukraine, suggesting unarmed observers or a civilian monitoring group sent there to oversee a potential peace deal.

Discussions on peacekeeping efforts in Ukraine remain premature and should only take place after a formal peace agreement has been reached, Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko said in an interview with Russian daily Izvestia on Sunday, during which a ceasefire was never directly mentioned.

In fact, Russia is likely to seek "ironclad" guarantees that NATO nations will exclude Kyiv from NATO membership and Ukraine will remain neutral, Grushko said. "We will demand that ironclad security guarantees become part of this agreement," Izvestia quoted Grushko as saying. "Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of NATO countries to accept it into the alliance."

Meanwhile, Lithuania on Sunday backed a European Union proposal to pledge up to 40 billion euros ($43.5 billion) in military aid for Ukraine this year and said a similar amount would also be needed in future years to hinder any future Russian attack.

"If we can sustain this amount ... for a longer period of time, that would be the amount that would allow Ukrainians to keep their armed forces at current strength," Lithuanian foreign minister Kestutis Budrys was quoted by Reuters as saying on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump is trying to win President Vladimir Putin's support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week and which Putin says needs to meet crucial conditions to be acceptable.

Grushko emphasised that NATO's involvement in peacekeeping operations is fundamentally contradictory, Xinhua news agency reported. "NATO and peacekeeping are entirely incompatible. The real history of the alliance consists of military operations and unprovoked aggression to assert its global and regional dominance," he said.

He reaffirmed Russia's stance that the deployment of NATO forces in Ukraine — whether under the banner of the EU, NATO, or individual national forces — would effectively place them in the conflict zone, making them direct participants with all the consequences that entail. As a possible alternative, he said that an unarmed observer mission or a civilian monitoring group could be considered to oversee certain aspects of a potential peace deal.

"Such (a) mission could ensure compliance with specific provisions and serve as part of a broader guarantee mechanism," he added. "It is because that only through their formation it will be possible to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine and generally strengthen security in the region," he said. "Ukraine’s neutral status and NATO member states’ refusal to admit this country as a member of the alliance must be the part of such guarantees."

Trump is expected to speak to Putin this week on ways to end the three-year war in Ukraine, US envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN on Sunday after returning from what he described as a "positive" meeting with Putin in Moscow.

Moscow is categorically against the deployment of NATO observers to Ukraine, Grushko also reiterated the Kremlin's position. Britain and France both have said that they were willing to send a peacekeeping force to monitor any ceasefire in Ukraine. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his country was also open to requests.

"It does not matter under what label NATO contingents were to be deployed on Ukrainian territory: be it the European Union, NATO, or in a national capacity," Grushko said. "If they appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the conflict."

Bringing up another possibility, he said, "We can talk about unarmed observers, a civilian mission that would monitor the implementation of individual aspects of this agreement, or guarantee mechanisms. In the meantime, it's just hot air."

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks published on Sunday that the stationing of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine is a matter for Ukraine to decide and not Russia.

With agency inputs