24,000 armed personnel needed for UN peacekeeping in Donbas, report says

A UN peacekeeping force in Ukraine will require 20,000
armed soldiers and 4,000 police officers to help resolve the armed conflict in
the Donbas region, according to a report produced by former NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is currently serving as an advisor to
President Poroshenko. The report will be presented this week to key officials
at the Munich Security Conference, including U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt
Volker, reported the Reuters news agency on Feb. 13. “The operation should
include several European countries, such as Sweden; countries that have experience
in peacekeeping operations, such as Brazil; and countries that Russia trusts,
such as Belarus,” said Richard Gowan, a co-author of the report. As a non-NATO
member, Sweden should lead the mission, Gowan said.

The UN peacekeeping mission will enable holding
elections in adherence to the Minsk Accords, which would grant autonomy to the
separate territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Ukrainian state. Such
elections could be held with a year of the mission’s introduction, Gowan said,
as reported by Reuters. The peacekeepers would be kept for another two years
during a cooling period to stabilize the situation, he said.

Zenon Zawada: The UN
mission being described could be the largest in its history. Certain diplomats
and experts even estimated a mission should involve as many as 50,000 armed
personnel, which Gowan reportedly said is unrealistic and wouldn’t be supported
by Russia. We have doubts that even a mission of 24,000 armed officials will be
supported by Russia. Moreover, we see too many points of contention at this
point for a peacekeeping mission to be agreed upon, which the Reuters report
acknowledges.

We continue to believe that Putin will agree to a
UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas only if the Ukrainian parliamentary elections
(scheduled for October 2019) don’t produce a strong result for Russian-oriented
parties. But we see the Russian-oriented parties potentially forming the
opposition in the parliament, which will encourage the Russians to continue to
lobby EU legislatures for the relaxation or removal of sanctions. In the
meantime, the Russians will use these peacekeeping discussions to buy time and
stall with any compliance with the Minsk Accords.