The US-led alliance will not send peacekeepers to Ukraine, Mark Rutte has said

NATO is not involved in the US-mediated ceasefire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Secretary General Mark Rutte has said. He added that Ukraine's NATO membership has never been a part of a potential peace deal.

During an interview with Ukraine's New Voice published on Saturday, the NATO chief was asked if the bloc had any "red lines" in the negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict.

"We do not have our own red lines, because we are not part of that," Rutte said. "We are not part, as NATO, of those negotiations. They are really driven by the US, together with Ukraine and the Russians. I'm glad that the US has broken the deadlock, that these talks are now ongoing," he added.

Rutte ruled out that NATO, as a bloc, could send peacekeepers to Ukraine. "Probably it will not be NATO as such. That's not very likely," he said, adding that individual member states could dispatch troops on their own. "That always means that it has an impact on NATO territory. It might have an impact on the defense of NATO territory also going forward."

Several NATO members, including France, the UK, and Germany have floated proposals to deploy peacekeepers after a ceasefire is reached.

Rutte stressed that Ukraine's aspiration to join NATO has not been tied to the ongoing talks. "It has never been promised to Ukraine that NATO membership will be part of a peace deal or a ceasefire," he said. "These are two separate things, a peace deal and the long-term prospect."

US President Donald Trump reiterated this week that Ukraine will "never be a member of NATO." Russia has cited NATO's expansion eastward as one of the core reasons behind the conflict, and demanded that Ukraine drop its plans to join the alliance.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has rejected the deployment of troops from NATO members in Ukraine in any capacity as unacceptable.

(RT.com)