Kremlin warns against sending NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine

MOSCOW

The Kremlin on Wednesday said a decision to send NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine would be "very reckless and extremely dangerous."

Speaking at a daily press briefing in Moscow, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said any possible contact between the Russian and NATO military could lead to "hardly reparable consequences."

Poland last week said an international peacekeeping mission should be sent to Ukraine.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a “special military operation.” The war has met international outrage with the EU, US and UK, among others, implementing tough financial sanctions on Moscow.

Peskov said the US is putting pressure on G20 countries to expel Russia from the format, but many states have resisted. "A number of states prefer to adhere to their independent, sovereign point of view," he said.

Asked if Belarus could join the military campaign in Ukraine, Peskov said President Alexander Lukashenko had clarified there were no such plans.

The spokesman also denied a possibility of involvement of forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, in the conflict, saying such issues have not come under discussion.

On allegations of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in the ongoing war, Peskov said the "Russian military does not strike or shoot at civilians" and termed allegations by Ukrainian officials "lies."

He instead claimed that civilians, leaving the cities under control of Ukraine's military, witness the opposite: abuse at the hands of Ukrainian armed forces.

"More and more witnesses are coming out of the cities and saying that they are being held there as a human shield and that nationalist battalions are opening fire on civilians," he said. "They tell how they are kept in an information blockade, blocked from receiving information about humanitarian corridors ... These are not our stories, these are the stories of Ukrainians ..."