Moscow believes that Kyiv’s plea to the UN to deploy a peacekeeping mission along the Russian-Ukrainian border in Donbas violates the succession of the Minsk agreements' stages, Russian Foreign Ministry spox Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, according to TASS news agency.
Advocating for the Russian version of the UN draft resolution on the UN peacekeepers in Donbas, where Moscow offers that the mission be deployed along the line of contact between the warring sides, Zakharova claims that the draft was "distorted in many Ukrainian media outlets" and "presented in an absolutely different way," TASS reports.
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Zakharova said it was "fundamentally crucial" that the UN mission not become a substitute for the Contact Group or the Normandy Four.
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As UNIAN reported earlier, on August 22, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared his intention to present the idea of deploying a peacekeeping mission in Donbas at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly, which started its work in New York City on September 12.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on September 5 he considered the deployment of UN peacekeepers in Donbas "quite appropriate," but only along the line of contact and with the aim of protecting the OSCE mission. At the same time, he stressed the issue could not be resolved without direct contact with representatives of pro-Russian militants in Donbas. Following that, Russia sent a draft resolution to the UN leadership regarding the deployment of peacekeepers in Donbas.
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On September 8, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov elaborated on Putin's statement about peacekeepers along the line of contact in Donbas. "It's not the UN forces, it's the mission to facilitate protection of OSCE observers. It is fully in line with the logic of the Minsk agreements," said Lavrov.
September 20, Poroshenko warned that there is no place for the representatives of the aggressor in the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas.