Russia Warns Will Consider Foreign Troops in Ukraine ‘Legitimate Targets’

Russia on Thursday said it would consider the presence of any foreign troops in Ukraine a legitimate military target, in Moscow’s first comments after Kyiv’s allies said they had agreed to key security guarantees for Kyiv at a summit in Paris.

“All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces. These warnings have been repeatedly issued at the highest levels and remain valid,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

She labelled Ukraine and its European backers an “axis of war”, warning agreements reached between them for the deployment of a European peacekeeping force were far from anything Russia could accept to end the war.

“The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine ‘axis of war’,” said Zakharova, calling the plans “dangerous” and “destructive”. (AFP)