Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the state-run TASS news agency that Moscow opposed that idea as well as others being proposed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“Russia is against the deployment of Western peacekeeping troops to Ukraine as part of any settlement to end the nearly three-year conflict,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.

Talk of the possible stationing of foreign troops in Ukraine to enforce any peace deal is circulating in Western capitals, with French President Emmanuel Macron and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk discussing the issue in a meeting in Warsaw this month.

In an interview published Monday (December 30, 2024) by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mr. Lavrov told the state-run TASS news agency that Moscow opposed that idea as well as others being proposed by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

“Of course, we are not satisfied with the proposals being voiced by representatives of the President-elect to postpone Ukrainian NATO membership for 20 years and to send to Ukraine a peacekeeping contingent of ‘British and European forces,’” Mr. Lavrov said.

The Kremlin had previously said it was “too early to talk about peacekeepers”.

Mr. Trump, who comes to power in three weeks, has claimed he can strike a peace deal in 24 hours and said he will use Washington’s multibillion-dollar financial and military support to Kyiv as leverage.

He has yet to propose a concrete plan but members of his team have floated various ideas, including the deployment of European troops to monitor any ceasefire along the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line and a lengthy delay on Kyiv’s ambitions to join the NATO military alliance.

Both the Russian and Ukrainian presidents have ruled out direct talks with each other, and positions in Kyiv and Moscow appear far apart on what would be acceptable terms for a peace deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously demanded that Ukraine withdraw its troops from four eastern and southern regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia — that Russia claims to have annexed, while Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out ceding territory to Moscow in exchange for peace.

U.S. President Joe Biden.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Joe Biden said Monday (December 30, 2024) that the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion more in weapons to Ukraine as his administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The package includes $1.25 billion in presidential drawdown authority, which allows the military to pull existing stock from its shelves and gets weapons to the battlefield faster. It also has $1.22 billion in longer-term weapons packages to be put on contract through the separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI.

Mr. Biden said all longer-term USAI funds have now been spent and pledged to use all the remaining drawdown money before leaving office.

“I’ve directed my administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.”

The new aid comes as Russia has launched a barrage of attacks against Ukraine’s power facilities in recent days, although Ukraine has said it intercepted a significant number of the missiles and drones. Russian and Ukrainian forces are also still in a bitter battle around the Russian border region of Kursk, where Moscow has sent thousands of North Korean troops to help reclaim territory taken by Ukraine.

The Biden administration is pushing to get weapons into Ukraine to give Kyiv the strongest negotiating position possible before Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Mr. Trump has talked about getting some type of negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Many U.S. and European leaders are concerned that Mr. Trump’s talk of a settlement might result in a poor deal for Ukraine, and they worry that he won’t provide Ukraine with all the weapons funding approved by Congress.

The weapons systems being pulled from existing stockpiles through this latest weapons package include counter-unmanned aerial systems munitions, air defense munitions, ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition, air-to-ground munitions, anti-armor systems, tube-launched missiles, fragmentation grenades, and other items and spare parts.

Including Monday’s announcement, the U.S. has provided more than $65 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.