Nato/European troops in Ukraine? Niet, says Sergey Lavrov.

The talk about putting British and other European (Nato) troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of an end to the war seems to have fallen on very stony ground. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said niet niet niet when it was raised at the US/Russian Ukraine war/peace summit in Riyadh today. It's early days but I cannot image any scenario in which Vladimir Putin will agree to having anyone from Nato marching around in Ukraine to deter him from invading Ukraine all over again at some future date. Keir Starmer boldly announced he was prepared to send British troops to Ukraine but has he thought it through? The numbers game has already started, with some saying 150,000 would be needed, Zelensky puts it at 200,000 and some of the European countries are saying 30,000, with a reinforcement capability built in. But that would mean a whole lot of troops training and readying themselves to rush to Ukraine in an emergency. The numbers are building up. But is it all fanciful thinking? If Putin says niet, then it's difficult to see how a peacekeeping force is going to be written into a peace deal. And even if it was, how long would such a force have to be stationed in Ukraine, a year, two years, for ever? There is a lot of drawing-board stuff required here.