Russia’s Foreign Minister blasts Keir Starmer’s ‘fully unacceptable’ Ukraine peacekeeping plans – saying troops from Nato nations can NEVER patrol ‘beneath another flag’ as Russia and US open talks on ending Putin’s struggle

Russia‘s foreign minister has blasted Keir Starmer‘s peacekeeping plans and says troops from Nato nations can never patrol in Ukraine ‘under some other flag’.

Sergey Lavrov said it was ‘completely unacceptable’ for peacekeepers to monitor the Russia-Ukraine border under any deal. 

‘Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable,’ he said. 

And his deputy Alexander Grushko added: ‘Under whatever guise they appear there, this is a step towards escalation.’ 

Moscow issued the chilling warning after the PM said he was prepared to deploy British troops to Ukraine to help police any ceasefire deal.

The development came after the first talks aimed at ending the war got under way between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia. 

The clash highlights the narrow path to peace in the coming months – with the US said to be looking to strike a ceasefire deal by Easter. 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated alongside US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Riyadh, said the talks were a ‘first step of a long and difficult journey’.

In an effort to ease fears that a deal could be imposed on Ukraine, he stated any peace pact would have to be ‘acceptable’ to ‘everyone’ and that President Trump wanted to ‘bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable‘.

U.S. and Russian officials agreed a new four-point plan as they sat down in Riyadh but whether a full deal can materialize remains to be seen amid questions over Ukraine’s involvement in the negotiation process.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was furious at being cut out of the first meeting and cancelled his own planned visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. 

Rubio, U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Putin aide Yuri Ushakov at the lavish Diriyah Palace.

It was the first round of talks as the U.S. looks to broker a peace deal to end the war that has been raging since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

There was no immediate agreement on when Trump and Putin will meet in person to discuss ending the war. 

The breakthrough talks came after Trump spoke with Putin last week as the U.S. moves away from isolating Russia, but Ukrainian officials were not present for the sit-down in the Middle East.

Rubio said that the U.S. and Russians agreed on four principles during their meeting as they start the initial steps toward a deal. 

First, he said the U.S. and Moscow will work to reestablish their respective diplomatic missions in each other’s countries so they can move forward with more communication.

Second, Rubio said the U.S. will appoint a high-level team to help negotiate, and third, they will begin to discuss geopolitical and economic cooperation that could help resolve the conflict.

Fourth, he said that the five people who were involved in the first meeting will remain engaged, so they know it is moving along ‘in a productive way.’

Rubio said they would not pre-negotiate and it would involve ‘hard and difficult diplomacy’ over a period of time, but he claimed only Trump could facilitate an end to the war.

‘The only leader in the world who can make this happen, who can even bring people together to begin to talk about it in a serious way is President Trump,’ the secretary of state said. 

Rubio also said that ‘in order for the conflict to end, everyone involved in that conflict has to be OK with it.’

He noted it has been more than three years since there was any ‘regularized’ contact between the U.S. and Russia.

Lavrov echoed Rubio’s remarks and said that ‘the conversation was very useful.’

He added: ‘We not only listened, but also heard each other.’

The talks reflected an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Trump.

It appeared to signal a significant easing of restrictions on Russian diplomatic missions in the U.S. that were imposed by previous administrations.

The two countries have expelled diplomats and limited the appointment of new staff at each other’s missions in a series of tit-for-tat measures over the past decade, leaving their respective embassies thinly staffed.

Rubio said those moves had ‘really diminished our ability to operate in Moscow’ and that Russia would say the same about its mission in Washington.

He said: ‘We’re going to need to have vibrant diplomatic missions that are able to function normally in order to be able to continue these conduits.’

Waltz, Trump’s National Security Advisor, said the two sides agreed that there needed to be a permanent end to the war and not a temporary pause.

He said there will be discussion of territory as well as security guarantees which will underlie any talks that they have. 

However, Waltz would not say whether the U.S. would agree to Russia retaining any Ukrainian territory it had annexed since it invaded three years ago, only that it was to be discussed.

‘What the president did not find acceptable was an endless war in Europe that was  literally turning into, has turned into, a meat grinder of people on both sides,’ Waltz said.

Speaking after the talks, Russia’s deputy foreign minister warned that Russia would not accept European or NATO peacekeepers in Ukraine to police any truce deal, hitting back at a proposal this morning by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

The talks came less than a week after Trump and Putin spoke by phone. The president also spoke with Zelensky by phone, he revealed. 

Zelensky signaled Ukraine could see the war coming to an end, but he has been pushing for security guarantees as part of the peace process.  

The Ukrainian president responded to the talks between the U.S. and Russia on Tuesday from Ankara, Turkey where he was meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

He said Ukraine will not ‘give in to Russia’s ultimatums’ as slammed the U.S. and Russians holding one-on-one talks.

Erdogan said his country would be an ‘ideal host’ for talks between Ukraine, Russia and the U.S. in the future.

‘I wonder why they believe Ukraine would accept all these ultimatums now if we refused them at the most difficult moment,’ the Ukrainian President said, referring to Kyiv‘s refusal to bow to Moscow‘s demands during crisis talks at the start of the war. 

‘As President of Ukraine, I have never given any guarantees to anyone or confirmed anything. Moreover, I have never intended to accept Russia’s ultimatums. And I am not going to,’ Zelensky said. 

Zelensky also revealed he was cancelling is own planned visit to Saudi Arabia. 

On Monday, Zelensky confirmed that Ukraine and European leaders were not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia and said Ukraine cannot recognize any peace agreement without its own participation.

Although they were also not at the table in Riyadh, other European leaders have also engaged in discussions of a peace deal. 

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron met with other European leaders in Paris where they addressed the war in Ukraine. The meeting took place after Macron spoke with Trump. He also had a call with Zelensky. 

Macron said the leaders want a ‘strong and lasting peace in Ukraine.’

‘To achieve this, Russia must end its aggression, and this must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians,’ Macron said in a statement.

He signaled the Europeans, Americans and Ukrainians would all work on it and that European countries will invest more in their security and defense. 

Rubio on Tuesday pushed back on the accusation that Europeans and Ukrainians have been sidelined in the negotiation process, arguing for three years ‘no one has been able to bring together something like’ their Tuesday meeting. 

‘No one is being sidelined here,’ the secretary of state said. ‘But President Trump is in a position that he campaigned on, to initiate a process that could bring about an end to this conflict.’

Rubio claimed the only thing Trump is trying to do is bring about peace, which he campaigned on.

Waltz said U.S. allies are being consulted on a daily basis, and that will continue. 

After the meeting, the Russians issued their own set of demands as the negotiations move forward. 

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that NATO membership for Ukraine is unacceptable to Moscow. 

She added: ‘It is worth noting that a refusal to accept Kyiv into NATO is not enough. The alliance must disavow the Bucharest promises of 2008.’

At a summit in the Romanian capital in 2008, NATO declared that both Ukraine and Georgia would join the defense alliance but gave them no plan for how to get there.

While both sides have been laying out their demands, Rubio said on Tuesday that whether or not a peace agreement can ultimately be reached will be determined by whether both sides agree. He did not go into specifics. 

He said the meeting was the start of a conversation and set the table for future dialogue, but ‘how that turns out will be up to the parties.’