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Senior Russian diplomat, EU envoy discuss Russian initiative on UN mission in Donbass

The diplomats also touched upon some regional issues

MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin met on Thursday with Vygaudas Usackas, European Union Ambassador to the Russian Federation, to discuss Russia’s initiative to deploy a UN mission in Donbass to protect the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the European security agency, the Foreign Ministry reports.

The two officials "discussed the situation in Ukraine with an accent on the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the Russian initiative to establish a UN mission to protect the OSCE SMM in the southeast of Ukraine," the ministry said, adding that the diplomats also touched upon some regional issues.

On September 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin handed instructions to the Foreign Ministry to submit a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council, stipulating the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Donbass to protect the OSCE monitoring mission there. 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. The Russian president said that the deployment of the UN forces could help resolve the Ukrainian issue.

On September 11, in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin agreed it might be possible to deploy UN peacekeepers not only along the line of contact in Donbass.