Putin suggests agreement on EU proposal on UN peacekeepers in Donbas
13 September 2017
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced he is
willing to accept German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s proposal that UN
peacekeepers be situated not only along the conflict line, but in other regions
of the conflict zone. “Ensuring the protection of OSCE monitors by the UN can
occur not only along the conflict line after the withdrawal of forces and arms
by both sides, but in other areas where the OSCE special monitoring mission is
conducting its inspections according to the Minsk program,” the Kremlin press
service said on its website on Sept. 11.
This morning, the tass.ru
news site reported that Russia has prepared a UN Security Council resolution in
which it supports an armed UN peacekeeping mission to protect OSCE monitors
after the full withdrawal of forces and arms from the conflict line for six
months, with the mission head reporting directly to the secretary general.
warranted given similar attempts in the past that didn’t work out. Ultimately,
we don’t think Putin wants a peacekeeping mission in Donbas because it
restricts his ability to use the conflict to achieve his geopolitical goals in
Ukraine, which is to bring the territory back under Russian control. We believe
Putin sees hope in gaining a strong presence in the Ukrainian parliament in the
2019 elections so we don’t expect any compromise with the West before then.
