Russia has maintained that deployment of Western military to the country is a deal breaker in ongoing peace negotiations

NATO nations will deploy troops in Ukraine once the conflict with Russia ends, the US-led military bloc's chief, Mark Rutte has said.

Moscow has maintained that the deployment of Western troops in Ukraine will only escalate the conflict and could lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. However, Kiev's European backers have continuously lobbied to send soldiers as a form of security guarantees for Ukraine.

"Some European allies have announced that they will deploy troops to Ukraine after a deal is reached," the NATO Secretary-General said in a speech in the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday. "Troops on the ground, jets in the air, ships on the Black Sea. The United States will be the backstop."

In the meantime, the US-led military bloc is "assisting, equipping and training the Ukrainian Armed Forces" and sending "billions of dollars' worth of critical US military hardware" to Ukraine, Rutte said.

Russia has long warned that it would treat any NATO soldiers sent to Ukraine as legitimate targets for strikes.

"The deployment of Western military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be considered a foreign intervention that poses a direct threat to Russia's security," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists on Monday.

Moscow has long seen the conflict as a NATO proxy war against Russia, carried out using Western materiel and Ukrainian manpower. Ukraine's ambition to join the US-led military bloc, as well as NATO's expansion towards Russia's borders are some of the fundamental causes of the current conflict, according to Moscow.

One of Russia's key peace demands is that Kiev embraces neutrality and gives up NATO membership ambitions, a goal that Moscow says it is ready to continue pursuing militarily in the event Ukraine refuses to compromise.

(RT.com)