President Donald Trump was incorrect when he said that Russia will accept European peace maintenance troops in Ukraine, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
While Trump said Monday during a White House meeting with the French president Emmanuel Macron that he had “specifically asked” Russian President Vladimir Putin, about the peace forces and that Putin “has no problem with that”, The Kremlin contradicted those comments early on Tuesday.
When asked about Trump’s comments in a media call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “Russian Foreign Minister has already said everything about it, I have nothing to add to add “
Peskov referred to the comments The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made last week at a press conference after conversations in Saudi Arabia with the Secretary of State of the United States 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 … It is, of course, unacceptable to us. ”
Moscow’s denial of Trump’s statement that Putin would accept the European peace maintenance troops is the last turn in the relations between the Trump administration, the historical European allies of the United States and Putin, who until recently had been seen Like a global outcast before a rapid warming in relations with Washington.
That approach between the United States and Russia has coincided, and has been the cause of, the splinter of Washington’s relationship with Europe.
While Trump and Macron renewed their friendly relationship, their Oval Office meeting was emblematic of the transatlantic crack that emerged on Ukraine and a series of other problems, including tariffs, since Macron became the first European leader to visit the house Blanca since Trump began his second term. .
On the third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine in Russia, Macron warned Trump to be “careful” in his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two also seemed to disagree with who was to blame for the war, as well as the financial contributions of Europe to Ukraine.
After Trump said that Europe, unlike the United States, would recover the money he had given to Ukraine in military aid, Macron said: “No, in fact, to be honest, we paid 60 percent of the total,” And he added that it was through the United States, loans, guarantees, subsidies, and we provided real money, to be clear. ”
“If you believe that, it is fine for me,” Trump replied, then saying that the United States and Ukraine are “very close to a final agreement” so that their administration access the deposits of rare earth metals of Ukraine as a way of recovering Some help, even after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rejected a US $ 500 billion in minerals last week.
Moscow’s comments on Tuesday tarnish two leaders that, as Trump said in the Oval office before his bilateral meeting with Macron, that “European troops can go to Ukraine as peacemakers.”
Macron responded to those comments later on Monday in an interview with Fox News, saying that “we want peace. And I think the initiative of President Trump is very positive. But my message was to say care because we need something substantial for Ukraine. ”
Lavrov and Rubio were expected to meet again in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this week to enter the negotiations on Ukraine, again without the presence of kyiv.
“Do not worry. kyiv will be invited to the negotiating table in due time,” Russia’s permanent representative for international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov said Monday, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
The last evidence of the fracture in relations between Europe and the United States, Trump’s meeting with Macron took internationally recognized.
Instead, the United States brought its own resolution, which ended up refraining after European nations won three amendments.
Before its spokesman dismissed the idea of European boots in the field in Ukraine, Putin told a journalist of state media on Monday that “we would only welcome” the participation of Europe in negotiations.
Meanwhile, all Ukraine was under Air Raid alerts on Tuesday early after the country’s Air Force warned about Russian missile attacks, which caused a fight of Polish airplanes and other allies on Polish airspace.
The operative command of the Polatic Armed Forces said in an X position on Tuesday early that the terrestrial air defenses had been activated due to Russian attacks in western Ukraine, before saying that military activity had ceased.
