{"id":406117,"date":"2025-09-07T20:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T20:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/406117\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T20:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T20:39:10","slug":"putins-brutal-reply-to-europe-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/406117\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin\u2019s brutal reply to Europe \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Vladimir Putin\u2019s weekend message to European talk of peacekeepers was quick and brutal. It came in more than 800 drones and 13 missiles, the largest Russian drone attack since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began<\/a>. Many drones were shot down by Ukrainian defences, but for the first time, they reached Kyiv\u2019s administrative heart, striking government buildings.<\/p>\n

On Thursday in Paris the 26 countries of the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d had pledged \u201cthe day after a ceasefire or peace\u201d to deploy troops in Ukraine as a \u201creassurance force\u201d to oversee and guarantee a peace agreement. It was an important expression of stepped-up solidarity with Kyiv, although details were not elaborated and none has said how many troops they might provide.<\/p>\n

Just as importantly, the summit was intended to put it up to US president Donald Trump that he must do more than express platitudes about a mission which he notionally supports but whose credibility as a deterrent force will ultimately depend on US air cover.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s non-committal response when called in by phone on the discussion was confined to calling for increased European economic sanctions on Russia. So far he has confined the US to secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil, although he did say last month that the US is open to a \u201ccoordinating\u201d role to help a European-led security mission in post-war Ukraine. He has hinted he might provide air support, but not peacekeepers.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s response was belligerent: missiles and a reiteration of Russian opposition to any foreign troops on Ukrainian soil. Any deployment, he warned, would be regarded as a \u201chostile intervention\u201d which could result in an uncontrolled escalation with unpredictable consequences.\u201d \u201cIf some military forces start appearing there, \u201cPutin declared, \u201cespecially now, while the fighting is ongoing, we will consider them legitimate targets to destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, speaking after the summit, reaffirmed a promise to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy earlier this week that \u201cIreland is open to participating in an appropriately mandated mission of this kind\u201d.<\/p>\n

With Russia determinedly opposed to any peacekeeping force and certain to block a supporting UN resolution, however, the promise may be difficult to keep. The \u201cappropriate mandate\u201d would be dependent on the Government\u2019s ability to pass its controversial legislation repealing the \u201ctriple lock\u201d that requires a UN mandate for overseas troop deployment. The bill is on the D\u00e1il agenda for this autumn.<\/p>\n

Ireland has a proud record in peacekeeping and how this should be continued will be central to the debate to come. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Vladimir Putin\u2019s weekend message to European talk of peacekeepers was quick and brutal. It came in more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[72850,6178,139943,2000,299,5187,12,332,110036,657,753],"class_list":{"0":"post-406117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-armed-conflict","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-conflicts-general","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-russia","16":"tag-russian-invasion","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-ukraine-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115164949193361712","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}