Kremlin Appears to Dispute Trump’s Claim Russia Would Accept NATO Peacekeeping Troops in Ukraine

In what appeared to be Russia disputing US President Donald Trump’s claim that Kremlin would accept European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, during a regular press briefing on Tuesday, said Russia “had nothing to add to the foreign ministry’s position on the unacceptability of NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine,” the Guardian reported.

The development comes just a day after Trump, appearing alongside France president Emmanuel Macron, claimed that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the potential deployment of NATO peacekeeping forces in Ukraine and that the latter had “no problem with it.”

Last week, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said the NATO troops’ deployment under another flag would be “unacceptable” to Russia.

Lavrov has, on several occasions, stressed that a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine is possible only if Kyiv abandons its plans to join NATO, closes Western military bases in the country, and cancels exercises involving foreign troops.

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