Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that any foreign troops deployed to Ukraine, particularly while its invasion was still ongoing, would be considered “legitimate targets” by Moscow's forces.

Putin's comments came hours after European leaders repledged their commitment to a potential peacekeeping force, a prospect that Moscow has repeatedly described as “unacceptable.”

“If any troops appear there, especially now while fighting is ongoing, we assume that they will be legitimate targets,” he said during a panel at the Eastern Economic Forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.

Putin also dismissed the idea of peacekeeping forces in Ukraine after a final peace deal, saying “no one should doubt” that Moscow would comply with a treaty to halt its 3½-year full-scale invasion of its neighbor.

He said that security guarantees would be needed for both Russia and Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said Moscow would need “legally binding documents” to outline such agreements. “Of course, you can't just take anybody's word for something,” he told Russian news outlet Argumenty i Fakty.

European leaders pledge peacekeeping force in Ukraine

Putin's comments follow remarks from French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday that 26 of Ukraine’s allies have pledged to deploy troops as a “reassurance force” for Ukraine once fighting ends.

Macron spoke after a meeting in Paris of the so-called coalition of the willing, a group of 35 countries that support Ukraine. He said that 26 of the countries had committed to deploying troops to Ukraine — or to maintaining a presence on land, at sea or in the air — to help guarantee the country’s security the day after any ceasefire or peace is achieved.

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Trump says India and Russia appear "lost" to "deepest, darkest China"

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said India and Russia seem to have been "lost" to China after their leaders met with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, expressing annoyance at New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order.

"Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!" Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at Xi's summit in China.

Asked about Trump's post, India's foreign ministry told reporters in New Delhi that it had no comment. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and representatives for the Kremlin could not be immediately reached.

Xi hosted more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Putin and Modi were see holding hands at the summit as they walked toward Xi before all three men stood side by side.

Trump has chilled U.S.-India ties amid trade tensions and other disputes. Trump this week said he was "very disappointed" in Putin but not worried about growing Russia-China ties.

Trump has been frustrated at his inability to convince Russia and Ukraine to reach an end to their war, more than three years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

He told reporters on Thursday night at the White House that he planned to talk to Putin soon.

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How Modi Is Sending Trump a Message

It was a sight to behold. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Tianjin on Monday, laughing, trading smiles, and even holding hands.

Washington surely took note. For over two decades, New Delhi’s foreign policy had shifted toward closer ties with the U.S. and the West, and gradually away from Russia. India had opened up economically to the U.S. and overcame its long-running reservations about deeper defense ties, joining The Quad alliance in 2007, and participating in joint military drills with America. But then came a reportedly tense Modi-Trump phone call in June and 50% tariffs last month, among the highest U.S. levy on any nation.

Putin is scheduled to visit India later this year, and the mood in Delhi is filled with an overdose of optimism toward Russia and China. But it would be a mistake to see this as the emergence of a new India-China-Russia geopolitical bloc, rather than a carefully crafted warning to the Trump Administration that bullying will be met with resistance.

Delhi’s three choices

When President Donald Trump first lashed out against India, Delhi had three options to choose from: submit to his pressure, do nothing, or implement a mix of symbolic and substantive measures and wait for the storm to pass. Option one would have required Modi, like his counterparts in Japan and Europe, to visit Washington and appease Trump. In this case, by winding down the purchase of discounted Russian oil, the purported reason for the sweeping tariffs. Had Modi chosen to do that, it would have had significant domestic political implications for his hyper-nationalist party, showing India as a country lacking the stomach to stand its ground. There is a perception in India that it has been unfairly targeted, given that Europe also buys Russian energy, and China even more, but faced no consequences.

The second option for Delhi was to do nothing. But this approach would have also had domestic political repercussions, with influential political and media figures as well as the opposition accusing the government of weakness—and thereby casting India in a poor light not befitting its desire to be a pole in a multipolar world. Doing nothing would also have run counter to India’s tradition of resisting U.S. pressure on the world stage. In any case, this option would have led to a lose-lose scenario, as inaction would have neither prompted Trump to reverse his measures nor have served Modi well domestically.

So Modi and his advisors chose the third option: taking a mix of symbolic and substantive steps, but essentially playing the waiting game to see if the trade spat blows over.

The pitfalls of a India-China-Russia pact

The scenes from the 2025 Tianjin Shanghai Cooperation Summit had an overdose of bonhomie and brotherhood among three of the world’s four most powerful nations. But the SCO is a China-centric group that reflects the country’s expanding geopolitical influence, including in South Asia. That rather stark reality is not lost on Delhi.

SCO is not a forum that Delhi wants to pin its strategic hopes on. It is a regional organization that India will remain a part of, without making it a major foreign policy focus. And there are still many obstacles to a lasting rapprochement between India and China, including a long-running border dispute that flared up as recently as 2020-2021. While Tianjin hasn’t led to a Sino-Indian rapprochement, the summit underscores the message that the next time the U.S. decides to enlist India’s help in containing China’s rise, Delhi may be harder to convince.

A similar logic applies to Delhi’s approach to Moscow. Although India has reduced its defense dependence on Russia in recent years, Delhi remains the largest importer of Russian arms and U.S. pressure will not quickly change that. The Indian foreign policy elite has only become more convinced of the importance of maintaining the Russia card in their broader relationship with the U.S., given Trump’s unpredictability.

Ultimately, however, a Sino-Russian alliance against the U.S. is not where New Delhi wants to be. As for China, it remains India’s main strategic challenge—one that can only be addressed by balancing China’s rising power or by bandwagoning with it. The former is beyond Delhi’s current capacity, and the latter is not a course India is willing to pursue.

Put differently, India wants to strengthen its presence in the Indo-Pacific and increase engagement with the West and Southeast Asia, and perhaps a post-Trump America. So this is a temporary hiccup—Indians will be unhappy, anti-Americanism will once again grow within the country’s strategic elite, and stories of American betrayals will persist for years.

But none of this will alter India’s grand strategic course. Delhi’s commitment to multialignment—maintaining cordial relations with all major players in the international system—has only been strengthened by Trump’s hardball approach.

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Why the Trump-Modi split is such a disaster

When it comes to bromances, President Donald Trump typically runs hot and cold. Remember Elon Musk? Vladimir Putin? First they’re besties, then they’re trading barbs. The latest example? Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

During Trump’s first term, Modi joined a Texas-sized rally in Houston to celebrate the strong ties between the US and India. Then Modi brought Trump to an Indian rally in the world’s largest cricket stadium. A lot of hand-holding ensued.

Flash-forward to Trump 2.0, and all is not well in the Trump-Modi bromance. That’s perhaps a microcosm of frayed ties between the United States and India, which is the world’s largest democracy. Plus, Indian immigrants make up the majority of H1-B visa holders in the United States.

So what went wrong?

Punishing US tariffs against India certainly plays a big role (Trump has blamed Modi for enacting “strenuous and obnoxious” trade barriers). Last month, the Trump administration imposed a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods; it added another 25 percent as punishment for India’s purchase of discounted crude oil from Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022. “Vladimir, Stop!” Trump posted this year to Truth Social, castigating another former bromantic partner.

Then you throw in some geopolitical intrigue for good measure. Trump is currently courting India’s rival, Pakistan; after a war nearly broke out in May over a terrorist attack in the disputed Kashmir region, Trump claimed that he brokered a ceasefire (Modi disputes this). India’s rival Pakistan then flattered Trump by nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. In kind, Trump invited Pakistan’s top military official to the White House.

For more on the past, present, and future of Trump and Modi’s broken bromance, Today, Explained co-host Sean Ramewaram spoke with Sadanand Dhume, a columnist at the Wall Street Journal and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Maintaining a good relationship with India has been a central part of American strategy in the Indo-Pacific for at least 25 years. And the reasons for that are obvious: India is the most populous nation in the world. It is currently the world’s fifth largest economy.

It’s predicted to be the third largest economy at market exchange rates. By 2028, it will have the world’s second largest military. And India has a large and disputed boundary with China.

The biggest democracy in the world.

Correct. And so for all those reasons, the US has worked hard, particularly over the last 25 years, to have India lean towards the US rather than lean towards China. And I think the US strategy has been quite successful. But now it’s all up in the air.

They’ve held hands in more than one place. But yeah, that’s the one where Modi grabbed Trump by the hand and took him on a tour of the stadium. And then Modi invited Trump to Ahmedabad, which is in Gujarat, which is Modi’s home state, and there in this giant cricket stadium. They had another rally called “Namaste Trump” to welcome Trump to India. I believe there was something like 100,000 people at that rally.

And then before the 2020 election, Modi all but endorsed Trump, which is very unusual for a foreign leader, certainly for an Indian leader, to do. And obviously Trump lost. But the Biden folks were very gracious about it, and they kind of ignored it and pretended it didn’t happen. And then when Trump was reelected, Modi was one of the first foreign leaders to visit. He visited the White House in February, and he said that MAGA plus MIGA, which is Make India Great Again, equals MEGA. And so, you know, the bromance seemed to be going really well. And now suddenly it’s not.