Ukraine is looking into the possibility of deploying OSCE peacekeepers to Russia-occupied districts in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.
"Now we are exploring the unprecedented possibility of the OSCE mandate," Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksiy Reznikov said during a Svoboda Slova [Freedom of Speech] TV panel show.
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"It turns out they [at the OSCE] have the right to introduce their peacekeepers, but they have never done this before. But it is formally and legally possible. We do not mind, the most important thing is their readiness," Reznikov said.
As UNIAN reported, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Vadym Prystaiko said in September 2019 that Ukraine would ask the international community to introduce a peacekeeping mission in case other tools used to resolve the situation in Donbas failed.
In October 2019, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the issue of deploying a peacekeeping mission along the border with the Russian Federation would be discussed in the Normandy format, which includes representatives of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany.
In April 2020, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Serhiy Kyslytsya said that in his opinion, the introduction of a UN peacekeeping mission to Donbas in the near-term outlook was unrealistic.
