Sir Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, backed by Paris, is proposing European troops (30,000 of them) be deployed to Ukraine so as to “police” any US-brokered ceasefire agreement. Such proposal is being brought up while US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are planning to meet sometime this month in a step towards settling the Russian-Ukraine conflict. Starmer is also urging Trump to keep American missiles and fighter jets “on standby” in Eastern Europe in case Moscow breaks the terms.

Moscow however already warned, earlier this month, that any peacekeeping force deployed in the region without a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) mandate would be deemed a legitimate target. In the words of Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, “any foreign military contingents sent to the combat zone will be, from the point of view of international law, ordinary combatants and a legitimate military target for our Armed Forces.”

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service had earlier reported that Western powers could deploy “peace-keeping” troops in what would constitute a de facto occupation of Ukraine. Starmer’s proposal seems to corroborate it. Of course, peacekeeping, by it is very nature, can only take place with the full consent of the belligerent parties, otherwise it is something else disguised as a peacekeeping contingent – in that regard, Nebenzya’s warning makes total sense.

European leaders however (who gathered in........

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