President Donald Trump was incorrect when he said that Russia will accept European peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, the Kremlin signaled Tuesday.
While Trump said Monday during a White House meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron that he had “specifically asked” Russian President Vladimir Putin about peacekeepers and that Putin “has no problem with it,” the Kremlin contradicted those comments early Tuesday.
When asked about Trump’s remarks in a media call, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “the Russian foreign minister has already said everything about it, I’ve got nothing to add.”
Peskov was referring to comments Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov made last week in a news conference following talks in Saudi Arabia with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Lavrov said that “the deployment of troops … [from] NATO countries, but under a foreign flag, under the flag of the European Union or under national flags … is, of course, unacceptable to us.”
Moscow’s denial of Trump’s claim that Putin would accept European peacekeeping troops is the latest twist in relations between the Trump administration, America’s historical European allies and Putin — who until recently had been viewed as a global pariah before a rapid warming in relations with Washington.
That rapprochement between America and Russia has coincided — and been a cause of — the splintering of Washington’s relationship with Europe.
While Trump and Macron renewed their friendly rapport, their Oval Office meeting was emblematic of the transatlantic rift emerging over Ukraine and a host of other issues, including tariffs, as Macron became the first European leader to visit the White House since Trump began his second term.
On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Macron warned Trump to be “careful” in his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two also appeared to disagree over who was to blame for the war as well as Europe’s financial contributions to Ukraine.
After Trump said that Europe, unlike the U.S., would get back the money it had given Ukraine in military aid, Macron said “no, in fact, to be frank, we paid 60 per cent of the total,” adding that “it was through, like the U.S., loans, guarantees, grants, and we provided real money, to be clear.”
“If you believe that, it’s OK with me,” Trump replied, later saying that the U.S. and Ukraine are “very close to a final deal” for his administration to access Ukraine’s rare earth metals deposits as a way to recoup some aid, even after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week rejected a U.S. demand for $500 billion in minerals.
Moscow’s comments Tuesday tarnishes the two leaders’ agreement that, as Trump said at the Oval Office before his bilateral meeting with Macron, that “European troops may go into Ukraine as peacemakers.”
Macron responded to those comments later Monday in an interview with Fox News, saying that “we want peace. And I think the initiative of President Trump is a very positive one. But my message was to say be careful because we need something substantial for Ukraine.”
Lavrov and Rubio were expected to meet again in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week to enter negotiations over Ukraine — again without Kyiv’s presence.
“Don’t worry. Kiev will be invited to the negotiating table in due time,” Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov said Monday, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
The latest evidence of the fracturing in relations between Europe and the U.S., Trump’s meeting with Macron came shortly after the U.S. opposed a United Nations resolution by Ukraine calling for Russia’s withdrawal from internationally recognized borders.
The U.S. instead brought its own resolution, which it ended up abstaining from after European nations won three amendments to it.
Before his spokesperson dismissed the idea of European boots on the ground in Ukraine, Putin told a state media reporter Monday, that “we would only welcome” Europe’s involvement in negotiations.
Meanwhile, all of Ukraine was under air raid alerts early Tuesday after the country’s air force warned of Russian missile attacks, which prompted scrambling of Polish aircrafts, and of other allies over Polish airspace.
The Polish armed forces operational command said in a post on X early Tuesday that ground-based air defenses had been activated due to Russian attacks in western Ukraine, before later saying that military activity had ceased.
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