Grushko also said that Russia would oppose any troops in Ukraine as part of post-conflict guarantees, including NATO troops, with Britain and France both saying in recent weeks that they are willing to send forces to monitor any ceasefire.
“If [those soldiers] appear there, it means that they are deployed in the conflict zone with all the consequences for these contingents as parties to the conflict,” he added.
However, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told reporters in Brussels on Monday that the stipulations the Russians have given show that they “don’t really want peace, actually, because they are presenting as conditions all their ultimate goals that they want to achieve from the war,” according to Reuters.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also told reporters that a “significant number” of European countries were willing to provide peacekeeping troops in Ukraine as part of a peace deal, according to Reuters.
The comments came after heavy fighting in Kursk over the weekend as Russian forces continued to slowly take territory in the region where Ukrainian forces have maintained a foothold for the past seven months.
The Ukrainian government sees Kursk as a valuable bargaining chip in any peace talks, but in recent weeks, it has been forced to retreat from parts of the region.
New images shown on Russian government channels over the weekend displayed an intensified military offensive by the country’s forces, bolstered by support from North Korean troops and the Trump administration’s temporary suspension of military and intelligence assistance to Kyiv.
Even as Trump has attempted to play peacemaker, saying on Truth Social Friday that he had asked the Kremlin not to attack Ukrainian troops in Kursk, Putin has urged his troops on, appearing in military fatigues during a visit to the region last week.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said Monday that its forces destroyed 72 Ukrainian drones overnight and took control of the southern village of Stepove in southeastern Ukraine.
In Moscow, a vocal minority of ultra-nationalists has urged Putin not to agree to a truce, calling it “a trap” and warning that the plan would give Ukraine time to regroup.
Last week, Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov called the ceasefire proposal “nothing else than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more.”
That came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin of prolonging the war and ignoring U.S.-led efforts to broker a ceasefire.
“The buildup of Russian forces indicates that Moscow intends to keep ignoring diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Saturday.
“We are ready to provide our partners with all the real information on the situation at the front, in the Kursk region and along our border,” he added.
Keir Simmons reported from Rylsk and Astha Rajvanshi from London.
