Another barrage of military drones was fired overnight at Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that he would consider any foreign troops deployed in the country to be “legitimate targets.”
The latest round of regular strikes on Ukraine came in the form of 91 Russian drones, the Ukrainian Air Force said, adding that it consisted of 18 strikes across eight locations in the country. No casualties were reported, but officials said that debris was still being examined.
This came after Putin offered a blunt message to Kyiv’s Western allies as they looked to agree on a “reassurance force” that any of their troops deployed to Ukraine would be targeted by Russia.
“If any troops appear there, especially now while fighting is ongoing, we assume that they will be legitimate targets,” Putin said during an economic forum in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok on September 5.
The warning from Putin is the latest in a series of uncompromising statements from the Russian leader that signals that efforts to jumpstart negotiations for a peace deal around the war in Ukraine have stalled following a summit in Alaska between Putin and US President Donald Trump last month.
Putin’s comments came just a day after Kyiv’s allies, the so-called Coalition of the Willing, had pledged a post-war “reassurance force” for Ukraine and after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to continue retaliating against Russian attacks on his country’s energy facilities despite criticism from neighbors Slovakia and Hungary, both Russian oil customers.
Putin Resists Compromising On Ukraine War Positions
In Vladivostok, Putin downplayed the value of meeting with the Ukrainian president, but also suggested that he would be willing to meet Zelenskyy, but only on home soil.
“The best place for this is the Russian capital, in Hero City Moscow,” said Putin, whose comments were met with rigorous applause.
Zelenskyy and other Western officials have since criticized the proposal as an unserious offer meant to help secure a deal to the Kremlin’s advantage.
“He can come to Kyiv,” Zelenskyy said in a teaser released on September 6 for a yet-to-be aired interview with ABC News. “I can’t go to Moscow when my country’s under missiles, under attack, each day. I can’t go to the capital of this terrorist.”
Putin “understands this,” Zelenskyy continued.
This follows a series of high-profile diplomatic events in China earlier this week that gave Putin the valuable optics of signaling that he is not isolated on the global stage, despite his break with the West following Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
At both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on September 1 and at a highly-choreographed Chinese military parade on September 3, the Russian president was seen shaking hands and sharing smiles with various world leaders, including notable face time with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Speaking in Beijing following the parade, Putin said that Russia is willing to fight to achieve all its objectives if Ukraine does not agree to a deal.
He also hinted that Western security guarantees after a future peace deal would not relate to the areas in eastern Ukraine whose inhabitants had voted to join Russia -– a reference to widely criticized elections held in the aftermath of their occupation and annexation by Russian forces.
Trump Expresses New Frustrations
Following the week of fast-paced diplomatic engagement, Trump appeared to be frustrated with both Russia and India, who had tried to press with new tariffs to stop its large purchases of Russian oil.
“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote in a September 5 social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at the SCO summit in China this week.
The White House imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on Indian imports in late August after it accused New Delhi of fueling Moscow’s deadly attacks on Ukraine by becoming Russia’s top oil customer since the invasion.
Trump has since walked back his criticism of India, telling reporters that while he remains “very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil,” he didn’t think that the United States had lost India to China.
Modi later said on September 6 that New Delhi and Washington still shared “very positive” ties.
How Trump will react to Putin’s latest statements and embrace of Moscow’s deepened ties with Beijing remains to be seen.
He has previously said that he is “very disappointed” in Putin and the US president has been frustrated at his inability to convince Russia and Ukraine to reach an end to their war and has previously set ultimatums and deadlines, including the threat of further sanctions if Russia won’t strike a peace deal.
Amid Putin’s diplomatic forays in China this week, Ukraine and Europe held their own meetings this week focused on ending the fighting, shaping security guarantees for Kyiv, and making sure that the Ukrainian Army is strong enough post-war to prevent another invasion.
