Donbass without peacekeepers

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko proposed to discuss the commissioning of the UN peacekeeping forces into the Donbass world secretary Rex Tillerson. He made this proposal in a telephone conversation with the Secretary of State.

In addition, politicians discussed the results of telephone conversations in the Norman format, held on April 18, and the results of the American-Russian negotiations that took place on April 12. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, Poroshenko also thanked Tillerson for the support of Ukraine, expressed in following the principle of "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine."

Recall that the head of the Ukrainian state had previously put forward proposals to attract various forces to ensure peace in the region. This time the proposal sounded after the death of an American citizen, a representative of the OSCE special monitoring mission in the Donbass.

According to the OSCE on April 23, the patrol of the special monitoring mission of the organization was blown up by a mine on the territory of the self -proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic. As a result, one person, a US citizen, died and two, a Czech citizen and a German citizen, were injured.

The OSCE car was blown up on a mine. / umoloda.kiev.ua

In connection with the U.S. State Department, Russia has already urged Russia to “use its influence” on the militias of the DPR and the LPR to help conduct a transparent and timely investigation into the undermining of the mission car. Thus, Russia could “take the first step to establish peace and ensure security in the east of Ukraine”, cites the RBC information agency from a quote from the transfer of an approval of the acting head of the US State Department of the State Department of the US Department of State.

Ukraine, of course, cannot attract the peacekeepers of the UN, as well as any other international forces to ensure peace in the Donbass without the consent of both sides of the conflict, in an interview with Polit.ru Georgy Chizhov, the Vice-President of the Center for Political Technologies, the head of the Ukrainian Bureau of the Fund.

“First of all, I must say about the status of peacekeepers - the so -called“ blue helmets ” - the UN. These are troops that appear in the conflict zone after the parties to the conflict managed to agree on its termination. Then, for observation and guarantees for ensuring this cessation, the very “blue helmets” that are armed and have the opportunity to forcefully respond to some excesses of the contractor.

From a formal point of view in the Donbass, the ceasefire agreements have already been concluded repeatedly: both in the form of the notorious Minsk agreements, Minsk-1 and Minsk-2, and in the form of local agreements on the next terminations of fire. But the fact is that the UN peacekeeping troops, as they say, are not eager for battle. And the national states that form these peacekeeping contingents also do not want their soldiers to die somewhere in foreign countries. Therefore, of course, in the difficult situation and the long line of the front, which are in the Donbass, it is not necessary to count on the introduction of any UN peacekeeping troops. And most importantly - one of the parties clearly does not want this.

At the same time, Poroshenko has long made a proposal to introduce not even peacekeeping troops, but an international police mission under the auspices of the OSCE - for the same purpose to verify the sides of the ceasefire. Then, a rather powerful PR campaign was conducted in the DPR and LPR against this mission: residents (even if it was not entirely clear what depended on them in this situation) that foreign police or military with weapons on their territory was a threat to the existence of independent republics. Actually, the Ukrainian side uses the initiative of Petro Poroshenko and the reaction to it in the DPR and LPR as evidence of the one who really wants the world and who is not; However, this is not convincing for everyone.

In a word, there will be no peacekeeping mission in the Donbass at least until both sides of the conflict ask for this. This is a necessary condition, but it is not yet sufficient: there will still be questions about the guarantee of at least some security of representatives of the international armed mission. Although it is clear that these are military, and no one will give them a hundred percent guarantee. But still, while one of the parties is not ready for this, there is nothing to say about the introduction of such a mission.

Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Fire Detection Zone

As for the appeal to Moscow from the United States, it shows what position the United States is in fact. This position is quite traditional for this country. But, in my opinion, from the illusion that with the advent of the new president to power in the United States, the American politician suddenly became pro-Russian, in Moscow they have already got rid of. So this, too, can be said, there is nothing new.

As for the investigation of the explosion of the OSCE mission machine: I think, before allowing or not to allow an international investigation, local authorities (of course, coordinating with the Russian representative) will try to understand who is actually guilty of installing this mine. And if it turns out that the Ukrainian side did it, it is quite possible that an international investigation will be allowed, which will come to the same conclusion. Well, if on the contrary, then there will be no effective international investigation.

Yes, this is a tragedy - a man died there. But, unfortunately, people on both sides die there every day. For America, this, of course, is a very unpleasant moment - but, by the way, this is an extra argument against the introduction of any peacekeeping troops. So the scheme is the same: first - the real truce and consent of the two sides, and only then negotiations will begin on the introduction of international armed intermediaries. I think that this has not yet threatened Donbass.

By the way, if we recall about the more or less similar conflicts in the territory of the former USSR, when some separatist formations were distinguished from the republics, we will see that, on the one hand, in all cases, in support of the separatists, they accused Russia (which is in Transnistria, that in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, I mean, back in the 1990s), and on the other hand, instead International peacekeeping forces appeared, in fact consisting exclusively of Russian troops.

There are still such in Transnistria; On the territory of the former Georgian autonomies, they lost meaning after the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008. And before that there, the role of peacekeeping forces was actually played by Russian troops, which clearly supported one of the parties to the conflict. This time this will not be allowed: Ukraine will never agree that the peacekeeping forces be Russian. Well, the second party will allow any other international forces. Therefore, I do not see some prospects yet.

Russia could still offer the use of the peacekeeping forces of the CIS-which, again, will be a kind of euphemism, covering the Russian troops. Or the forces of the CSTO. Or something else-there are quite a lot of abbreviations, but this is all in practice about one thing. Therefore, I think that the de-escalation of the conflict in the Donbass is possible only, firstly, in the presence of political will from both sides; And, secondly, with the improvement of purely technical demarcation measures. That is, for example, a little withdraw the troops from each other; Use the terrain is somehow in such a way. Probably, you can create a line of contact where the fighting will not be conducted or almost will not be conducted.

As an example, again, one can cite the line of contact of the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, which has been holding for more than two decades. And although there, it happens, fighting flashes, nevertheless, mainly there are relatively quiet. So this can be considered a relatively positive example, ”said Georgy Chizhov.