Putin issues warning on US troops in Ukraine
Russia will treat any US troops sent to Ukraine as invaders and Washington knows that, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of Rossiya Segodnya, on Wednesday.
The Russian leader reiterated his stance that the presence of any foreign military forces in Ukraine – as well as deliveries of Western weapons – will neither change the situation on the battlefield nor prevent Moscow from achieving its goals.
“The United States announced that they are not going to send troops. We know what American troops on Russian territory are – they are interventionists. We will treat it this way, even if they appear on the territory of Ukraine. They understand it,” Putin noted.
He went on to say that Western military has long had boots on the ground in Ukraine and that they have grown in numbers since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, which set Ukraine on a collision course with Russia.
“Now they are present both directly and in the form of advisers, they are present in the form of foreign mercenaries and are suffering losses. But if we are talking about official military contingents of foreign states, then I am sure this will not change the situation on the battlefield,” the president concluded.
Last week, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski claimed that the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine is “not unthinkable.” He was commenting on a statement by French President Emmanuel Macron, who said late last month that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of soldiers from the US-led military bloc being sent to aid Kiev.
Macron’s comments sparked a wave of denials from senior officials of NATO member states, including the UK, Czech Republic, Finland, and Sweden, who insisted that they harbor no such plans. Last week, Poland clarified that it would not send any troops to Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, warned last month that the arrival of a Western military contingent to Ukraine would make a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia not only “possible,” but “inevitable.”
