UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas should be last resort, Prystaiko says

Ukraine should not consider introducing a UN
peacekeeping mission in Donbas until all other means of fulfilling the Minsk
Accords are exhausted, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko told the
annual Yalta European Strategy conference on Sept. 14. “If all else fails, we
will be forced to ask the international community for a peacekeeping operation,
in this or another format,” he said, as reported by the eurointegration.com.ua
news site.

In his turn, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Miroslav
Lajcak said any discussions on a peacekeeping mission need ñonditions of
consistent peace in Donbas, which are currently lacking. Peacekeeping missions
have been introduced in conditions of warring, yet only when there is agreement
on the mission’s mandate. “We have two visions of the peacekeeping mission and
they are entirely incompatible,” Lajcak told the YES conference the same day.
As examples, he mentioned disagreements on the mission’s full access to
occupied Donbas (Russia is opposed), as well as attempts to use the mission to
legitimize “these strange military formations along the conflict line.”