MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/. The Russian-drafted UN Security Council on the deployment of a UN mission to Donbass to ensure the security of the OSCE monitors needs to be adopted, not discussed, Russian Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov said in an interview with TASS.
"Russia’s position on reconciling the parties to the Donbass conflict has been clarified in our draft resolution of the UN Security Council. What is there to discuss? It needs to be adopted," he said.
According to Surkov, "Russia has put forward a realistic and implementable peace initiative." "Those who do not support this initiative do not want peace," he stressed. "If someone doesn’t need peace in Ukraine, they should openly say it rather than some come up with chimerical projects aimed at distracting others’ attention," the Kremlin aide said.
When asked how he planned to make his negotiating partners see his point, Surkov said: "Our country is the most effective peacemaker. It is an obvious thing. It was Russia that stopped the large-scale civil war in Ukraine."
The Russian presidential aide pointed out that "the cessation of offensive operations by the parties to the conflict, turning the front line into the line of contact and the adoption of the Minsk Agreements became possible as a result of the implementation of Putin’s peace plan, announced in the summer of 2014."
"The implementation of the plan continues despite all difficulties and obstacles," he went on to say. "Just recently our president upheld a proposal made by Viktor Medvedchuk [the leader of the Ukrainian Choice movement and Kiev’s representative to the of the humanitarian subgroup Contact Group on resolving the situation in eastern Ukraine - TASS] concerning the prisoner exchange, which is just another proof of that. Russia’s initiatives work, so it is unreasonable to reject them," Surkov noted.
Russia’s initiative
On September 5, upon instructions from President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Foreign Ministry submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council, stipulating the deployment of a UN mission to Donbass in order to ensure the security of the OSCE monitors. 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.
However, Kiev immediately said it would not accept the plan as it insisted on the deployment of "peacekeeping forces" along the Russian border.