Russian senator says deploying peacekeepers to Donbass plugs all loopholes for Kiev

MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative to deploy UN peacekeepers along the Donbass line of contact in order to ensure the OSCE mission’s security will help achieve several tasks at a time, Chairman of the Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Committee for Foreign Affairs Konstantin Kosachev said on Tuesday. According to him, first of all, the initiative will deprive the Ukrainian authorities of an opportunity to cite an alleged Russian aggression.

The conditions outlined by the Russian president, which include narrowing the peacekeepers mandate to the protection of the OSCE mission, their deployment only to the line of contact and the withdrawal of troops and weapons based on a decision reached with the self-proclaimed Donbass republics, will leave no loopholes for Kiev, Kosachev wrote on Facebook.

"Judging by the panic response from Kiev, they have realized this already," Kosachev said. "The response that Ukraine’s representative to the Contact Group on Donbass Irina Gerashchenko gave, shows Ukraine’s true intentions: it does not want peacekeepers, it wants some police units from the West to be deployed to the entire territory of the DPR and LPR under a UN mandate," Kosachev said. The Russian senator added that Kiev was actually inclined to consider the Russian border as the "line of contact."

In Kosachev’s view, Putin’s initiative will help achieve several tasks at a time. "It refutes the allegations put forward by Ukraine and the West, claiming that Russia is unwilling to fulfill the important security provision before implementing other provisions of the Minsk Agreements. This is a realistic idea, and so it poses a threat to Kiev, since it may help calm down the situation along the line of contact and deprive the Ukrainian authorities of an opportunity to cite an alleged Russian aggression." Besides, in Kosachev’s words, if the plan is implemented, "all the talk about supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine will become useless."

On Tuesday, while addressing his final press conference at the BRICS summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would submit a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council, stipulating the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Donbass in order to ensure the OSCE mission members’ security. Putin pointed out that the deployment of the UN forces would become possible only after the weapons withdrawal process completed and the issue was agreed on with the self-proclaimed Donbass republics.