Russia does not see any sense in deployment of the UN security mission on the Russian-Ukrainian border, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said in an interview with TASS in response to a request for comment about the Russian draft resolution on the UN security mission in Donbass.
“They want the UN to fan out across Ukraine, including the Russian-Ukrainian border,” he said. “Russia is not a conflicting party, so there is no sense in deploying peacemakers along its border.”
Gatilov stressed that Moscow supports the Minsk accords that contain “a whole range of issues to be addressed before the situation shifts to a conversation about the Russian-Ukrainian border.”
“Ukrainians put the cart before the horse: they want first to close the border between Russia and Ukraine and then to solve or not solve issues related to other settlement aspects,” he noted. “We do not share this approach, as it contradicts the Minsk accords,” the Russian deputy foreign minister stated.
On September 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the UN mission should be deployed along the Donbass contact line to provide security for the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission members. He noted that it would be possible to deploy a mission if the self-proclaimed republics (the DPR and the LPR) agreed to it and if weapons were withdrawn by the conflicting parties as set in the Minsk accords. The president specified later that it was possible to deploy this mission not just along the contact line, but also in other areas that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission visits for inspection under the Minsk accords.