MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to join US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” aimed at resolving conflicts globally and oversee governance and reconstruction in Gaza, the Kremlin said Monday.
Moscow for years tried to balance relations with all major players in the Middle East — including Israel and the Palestinians.
But since the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Putin has moved away from Israel, boosting ties with its foes like Iran.
Moscow has also sought closer relationships with the Gulf states amid growing Western isolation.
“President Putin also received an invitation to join this Board of Peace,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, including AFP.
Russia was seeking to “clarify all the nuances” of the offer with Washington, he said, without adding if the Kremlin chief as inclined to join.
The White House has reached out to various figures around the world to sit on the so-called “Board of Peace,” chaired by the US president himself.
Putin has previously praised Trump’s efforts to resolve conflicts.
“He’s really doing a lot to resolve these complex crises, which have lasted for years, even decades,” Putin said last October.
Referring to the situation in the Middle East, Putin said: “If we succeed in achieving everything Donald has strived for... it will be a historic event.”
The assault on Ukraine and the war in Gaza have strained Moscow’s traditionally good relations with Israel, home to a large Russian-born community.
The Kremlin has repeatedly criticized Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks and called for restraint.
“The Gaza Strip is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe in the full sense of the word,” Putin was quoted as saying by the news agency RIA Novosti, at a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas last May.
“Russia, as a friend of the Palestinian people, is trying to provide regular assistance,” the Russian president added.
Putin invited to Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’: Kremlin
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Putin invited to Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’: Kremlin
- The White House has reached out to various figures around the world to sit on the so-called “Board of Peace,” chaired by the US president himself
Russia says foreign forces in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate targets’
- Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries
MOSCOW: Russia would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Foreign Ministry said on Monday, citing Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The ministry’s comment, one of many it said were in response to questions put to Lavrov, also praised US President Donald Trump’s efforts at working for a resolution of the war and said he understood the fundamental reasons behind the conflict.
“The deployment of military units, facilities, warehouses, and other infrastructure of Western countries in Ukraine is unacceptable to us and will be regarded as foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security,” the ministry said on its website.
It said Western countries — which have discussed a possible deployment to Ukraine to help secure any peace deal — had to understand “that all foreign military contingents, including German ones, if deployed in Ukraine, will become legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces.”
The United States has spearheaded efforts to hold talks aimed at ending the conflict in Ukraine and a second three-sided meeting with Russian and Ukrainian representatives is to take place this week in the United Arab Emirates.
The issue of ceding internationally recognized Ukrainian territory to Russia remains a major stumbling block. Kyiv rejects Russian calls for it to give up all of its Donbas region, including territory Moscow’s forces have not captured.
Moscow has repeatedly said it will not tolerate the presence in Ukraine of troops from Western countries.
The ministry said Moscow valued the “purposeful efforts” of the Trump administration in working toward a resolution and understanding Russia’s long-running concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion and its overtures to Ukraine.
It described Trump as “one of the few Western politicians who not only immediately refused to advance meaningless and destructive preconditions for starting a substantive dialogue with Moscow on the Ukrainian crisis, but also publicly spoke about its root causes.”
