Foreign ministers meet to discuss UN peacekeeping in Donbas

The foreign ministers of the Normandy Format (France,
Germany, Russia, Ukraine) met on June 11 in Berlin to discuss a UN peacekeeping
mission in Donbas and, for the first time, releasing Ukrainian political
prisoners being held in Russia. It was the first such foreign ministers meeting
since February 2017. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told reporters “a
real discussion” occurred on these topics as the Russian and Ukrainian sides
examined their diverging positions on a UN peacekeeping mission.

In particular, the Russians want the UN peacekeepers
to merely serve as escorts to the existing OSCE monitoring mission, along the
conflict line and in the occupied territories, Klimkin said. “To simply walk
with the special monitoring mission along those roads that are already
accessible to it makes no sense at all,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainians want the UN peacekeepers to
have the authority to disarm people, as well as share with the OSCE the authority
to search for heavy artillery and to monitor the removal of heavy artillery, he
said. 

Zenon Zawada: A UN
peacekeeping mission is one of the cards that Putin is keeping on his table,
but it won’t happen any earlier than 2020. And the only way Putin will agree to
a UN peacekeeping mission is if he fails to get a Russian-oriented president or
parliamentary opposition in the 2019 elections. Even then, he is unlikely to
agree to a UN peacekeeping mission without major concessions from the West on
what that the mission will look like. It will also have to involve soldiers
from entirely neutral countries, or Russian peacekeepers to balance those from
NATO countries.

The Russian UN peacekeeping proposal, which makes no
sense as Klimkin correctly pointed out, confirms our view of events. The
Russians are using these talks merely to test their opponents, get a sense of
general attitudes, but not commit to anything serious, let along propose
anything serious. With these talks, Putin is merely biding his time while he
focuses on the real chessboard, which is the upcoming elections in Ukraine.