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Poroshenko demands Russia be excluded from Donbass peacekeeping mission

The Russian president previously backed deploying UN peacekeepers to Donbass

© EPA/ATEF SAFADI

OTTAWA, September 26. /TASS/. Russia’s involvement in the deployment of the UN peacekeeping mission to protect members of the monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is ‘absolutely impossible,’ Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko was quoted as saying by Canadian media on Tuesday.

"This is absolutely impossible on the statute of the United Nations that Russia can be part of the peacekeeping mission," Poroshenko said in an exclusive interview with Canada’s public radio and television broadcaster CBC.

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"Russia will use peacekeepers as a kind of bodyguards for the observers of the special monitoring mission of the OSCE, which is absolutely against the (UN) statute," the Ukrainian president added.

On September 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested deploying UN peacekeepers in southeastern Ukraine to protect members of the OSCE monitoring mission.

The deployment of the UN forces will be possible only after the weapons are withdrawn and upon consent from the self-proclaimed Donbass republics.

On September 11, in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin agreed it might be possible to deploy UN staff in other places as well.

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