Foreign troops in Ukraine could be ‘legitimate targets’ for Russia – Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that any foreign troops deployed to Ukraine before a peace agreement has been signed would be considered “legitimate targets” by Moscow’s forces.

His comments came hours after European leaders pledged again their commitment to a potential peacekeeping force.

“If any troops appear there, especially now while fighting is ongoing, we assume that they will be legitimate targets,” he said during a panel at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok.

Mr Putin also dismissed the idea of peacekeeping forces in Ukraine after a final peace deal, saying “no one should doubt” that Moscow would comply with a treaty to halt its three-and-a-half year full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

He said that security guarantees would be needed for both Russia and Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said that Moscow would need “legally binding documents” to outline such agreements.

“Of course, you can’t just take anybody’s word for something,” he told Russian news outlet Argumenty i Fakty.

The Russian leader’s comments follow remarks from French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday that 26 of Ukraine’s allies have pledged to deploy troops as a “reassurance force” for Ukraine once fighting ends.

Mr Macron spoke after a meeting in Paris of the so-called coalition of the willing, a group of 35 countries that support Ukraine.

He said that 26 of the countries had committed to deploying troops to Ukraine — or to maintaining a presence on land, at sea or in the air — to help guarantee the country’s security the day after any ceasefire or peace is achieved.

Addressing the participants of the international economic conference the Ambrosetti Forum on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was important that security guarantees “start working now, during the war, and not only after it ends”.

He said he could not disclose more details as they are “sensitive and relate to the military sphere.”

Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022, almost eight years after Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Moscow has repeatedly described the presence of Nato troops in Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force as “unacceptable”.

Overnight, Russian troops attacked Ukraine with 157 strike and decoy drones, as well as seven missiles of various types, Ukraine’s air force reported on Friday. Air defences shot down or jammed 121 of the drones, it said.

One attack damaged multiple residential buildings in Dnipro in central Ukraine, regional administration head Serhii Lysak wrote on social media.

The regional administration also said that an unspecified “facility” had been set alight in the strike, but did not give further details.

Mr Lysak shared photos of residential buildings with damaged roofs, glass shards lying on the ground and people carrying wooden boards to cover broken windows.

“Private homes were damaged. Windows in apartment buildings were shattered,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region north of Kyiv, Russian drones attacked infrastructure in the Novhorod-Siversk district, leaving at least 15 settlements without electricity, local authorities reported.

Elsewhere, Russian troops destroyed 92 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.

Local social media channels in the city of Ryazan, approximately 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, reported that the city’s Rosneft oil refinery had been targeted. They shared videos that appeared to show a fire against the night sky.

Local Governor Pavel Malkov said drone debris had fallen on an “industrial enterprise” but did not give further details, instead warning residents not to post images of air defences on social media.