Russia Says ‘Uncontrollable Escalation’ if NATO Troops Deploy to Ukraine as Peacekeepers

Western nations deploying troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers in a potential demilitarised zone, as repeatedly called for by President Zelensky, would be “absolutely unacceptable to Russia”, their Foreign Ministry complains.

Spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry dashes out warnings against NATO daring to get involved in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine with peacekeeper troops, while telling the remaining ex-Soviet states that haven’t joined the alliance yet not to get “stuck in NATO’s web”, darkly hinting at “millions of civilian casualties”.

Maria Zakharova, who deals with the press on behalf of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reacted to now months of discussion within Europe that a route to peace in Ukraine is using a ceasefire to insert NATO troops into the country as peacekeepers. Under variations of this idea, which Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously branded the President Macron initiative, there would be a demilitarized zone in Ukraine that Russia would be deterred from attacking by a large force of European troops.

While France has been the keenest proponent, the United Kingdom under Sir Keir Starmer has said it would certainly get involved, and Germany says it will “obviously have a role to play”. Now this week, President Zelensky has welcomed this enthusiasm from his European supporters but expressed the plan simply won’t work if the United States also doesn’t get boots on the ground, stating the U.S. military is the ultimate guarantor of peace in NATO.

As reported, Bloomberg at Davos reported Zelensky “bristled” at the suggestion America might not deploy, and told them: “It can’t be without the United States… Even if some European friends think it can be, no it can’t be. Nobody will risk without the United States.” Zelensky implied in the interview his agreeing to a diplomatic end to the war might be contingent on this, stating: “The only question is what security guarantees and honestly I want to have understanding before the talks… If [Trump] can guarantee this strong and irreversible security for Ukraine, we will move along this diplomatic path”.

Speaking on Thursday, Russia spokesman Zakharova responded directly to these developments, once again warning of uncontrollable escalation. She said: “Any intervention of NATO forces in Ukraine risks escalating the conflict beyond control. This scenario is absolutely unacceptable to Russia… We have taken notice of reports about Westerners’ plans to deploy their troops in support, as they put it, of a peace agreement”.

Zakharova also laid down warnings to other nations not to consider joining NATO, issuing dark implicit threats. Reacting to a meeting of the NATO military committee to which several NATO partner countries were invited to also participate, the Kremlin specifically named a group of post-Soviet nations who took part in their warning.

Addressing Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, as well as Ukraine, Zakharova said: “We call on the countries that participated in this event, which are not yet stuck in NATO’s web and had not pledged to serve in the interests of the so-called golden billion, to reflect on their own national interests and think about whether it is worth tying their fate to the military bloc, which has a decades-long experience of aggression, wars, conflicts, destroyed states as well as millions of civilian casualties”.

Zakharova said any country that agreed to join NATO would suffer having a “pro-Western elite” imposed upon them, and that they would be forced to adopt “pseudo-values”.

Russia does a brisk trade in gloomy warnings to the West against interfering in the Ukraine War, and while the big promises, like major escalation and nuclear war, do not appear to be on the horizon there has been some retaliation in what NATO called hybrid warfare. In areas from weaponised migration against Europe to computer hacking and infrastructure sabotage, the Russian Federation is accused of thousands of small acts of sub-war aggression meant to make life for the West more difficult.