MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The issue of deploying a UN peacekeeping mission at the Russian-Ukrainian border in Donbass is off the table as it would be contradicting the Minsk agreements on the ceasefire in the eastern Ukrainian region, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
"The Russian proposal in its essence stipulates that this UN mission would be able to ensure the security of the OSCE mission personnel in the areas where this OSCE personnel are performing their function. They mainly perform their functions at the demarcation line," Peskov told reporters, answering a question as to whether the Kremlin’s position on the UN peacekeepers in Donbass had changed.
The Kremlin spokesman pointed out that the concept concerned the deployment of the UN peacekeepers at the contact line for ensuring the OSCE staff security and not at the Russian-Ukrainian border in Donbass.
"The deployment of any missions at the border, as strictly stipulated by the Minsk Agreements, would contradict the Minsk Agreements. What is essential, is that in any case, any aspects of any missions' work are of course subject to approval by the sides in the conflict, namely Kiev and the unrecognized republics of Donbass," Peskov added.
On Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said that the work on a draft UN Security Council resolution on UN peacekeepers in the eastern Ukraine conflict zone was underway with Moscow insisting on the mission deployment along the contact line where the observers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) were operating. Zakharova expressed Moscow’s readiness to discuss alternative proposals on the subject of the Donbass peacekeepers.
