You're reading: Ukraine envoys trying to persuade UN to send peacekeeping mission to Donbas

NEW YORK - The Ukrainian delegation to the UN will within the next year work on discussing mechanisms to ensure that a peacekeeping mission is dispatched to the eastern regions of Ukraine, Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations Yuriy Serheyev has said.

“[The Ukrainian] President in his speech [on September 29] said that Russia by its stance blocks the sending of a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine. Certainly, the issue isn’t closed, but Russia blocks it. It’s technically possible to evade this blocking, and we don’t rule out that out,” he told Interfax-Ukraine in New York on Sept. 29.

Serheyev said that the UN General Assembly could dispatch a peacekeeping mission without the permission of the UN Security Council.

“There is a resolution 377 at the UN General Assembly ‘United for Peace’ – a special session, which can take a decision. It requires definite work and consolidation of people,” Serheyev said.

He said that there are other mechanisms which combine UN and EU principles, adding that this would be on agenda of the next UN General Assembly.