After earlier this week European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen boasted to The Financial Times that the European Union had "pretty precise plans" for deploying a multinational force to Ukraine, and which is backstopped by the Untied States, the Kremlin has made clear it has flatly rejected such a prospect.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Moscow would not even discuss or entertain in any way deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine as part of a future peace deal. There will be no international post-conflict security force "in any format" - she made clear.
"Russia is not going to discuss the fundamentally unacceptable and security-undermining foreign intervention in Ukraine in any form, in any format," Zakharova told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
Suggesting that it's entirely a waste of time for the West to be talking about such a topic, she said "next time they aim to discuss this topic, they should have a pointer in the form of Russia’s position."
"Judging by Ukraine’s losses, the European Commission has simply outdone itself," Zakharova added, at a moment Russia's ground forces continue to make gains in the east, and even into the more central Dnipropetrovsk region.
And yet Europe is still forging ahead, with French President Emmanuel Macron hosting a summit of European leaders on Thursday. He declared, "We are ready, we the Europeans, to offer the security guarantees to Ukraine and Ukrainians the day that a peace (accord) is signed."
He called details of guarantees "extremely confidential" but indicated that the preparations had been complete. Various allied defense ministers will take up the issue in the Paris meeting on Thursday. But confidential or not, Russia has clearly already rejected whatever multinational force plan that the Western allies have on the table.
Moscow has consistently made clear its position, stretching back months or even over the last year, but this doesn't seem to have gotten through to Western capitals.
President Putin while speaking from Beijing Wednesday, after observing Xi's big military parade along with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, didn't sound like he's in a hurry to make compromises at the negotiating table.
He painted a picture of his troops having the clear battlefield momentum and upper-hand, describing that "Ukrainian combat-ready units are staffed at no more than 47-48%," in a speech. "Ukrainian military is constantly forced to redeploy units from one part of the front, to another," he said.
That's when he underscored that if the Ukraine conflict "cannot be resolved peacefully, Russia will be forced to achieve its objectives by military means."
He did say that "If Zelensky is interested in meeting, let him come to Moscow" - but that such a meeting can only happen once clear understandings are reached, and if something substantial can be agreed up, and not just for the sake of optics or having a meeting just to have it.