Bringing NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine will trigger WWIII

Poland wants to bring in its peacekeepers to Ukraine to create a headquarters in Lvov and "stay there," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. According to him, the Baltic countries already propose sending military battalions to Ukraine.

A move to send NATO peacekeepers to Ukraine will turn into a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a meeting with students and professors of MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations).

"Our Polish colleagues have said that there will be a NATO summit held, that they need to send peacekeepers. I hope they understand what they are talking about. This would be a direct confrontation between Russian and NATO armed forces, which everyone wanted to avoid saying that it should never take place at all,” Lavrov said.

According to him, if peacekeepers enter Ukraine from the western border, this could mean that Poland may pursue a goal to create headquarters in Lvov in order to stay there afterwards.

Speaking about the second goal of this "provocation", Lavrov said that the Baltic countries "can send their little battalions to defend Ukraine" too.

Russia must maintain restraint, the minister noted. Moscow has already outlined its position on the Ukrainian issue in writing.

On March 16, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Yaroslav Kaczynski said that NATO needs to send a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine.

"I believe that a NATO peacekeeping mission is needed, perhaps some kind of a broader international system, but a mission that will be able to defend itself, that will act in Ukraine,” he said.

The NATO charter has no provisions stipulating the deployment of peacekeeping missions in third countries. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but former President Petro Poroshenko amended the Ukrainian Constitution, having enshrined its course towards NATO membership.

Russia under no conditions wants Ukraine to become a member of NATO. In March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that he had lost interest in the issue of Ukraine's NATO membership because the alliance had publicly rejected such a possibility. Kiev had heard a lot about NATO's open doors for years, but then it came to realise that it would never enter those doors.