Russia does not support the U.S. Department of State’s idea that UN peacekeepers should be deployed along the Russian-Ukrainian border, State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee head Leonid Slutsky said.
“We, as a Security Council member, do not object to a UN peacekeeping contingent, but only as long as it is used for ensuring the safety of the OSCE mission,” Slutsky told journalists on September 14.
The U.S. Department of State’s idea to deploy UN peacekeepers along the Russian-Ukrainian border “is clearly anti-Russian,” he said.
“Therefore, such a message cannot be supported,” he said.
By declaring its position in such a way, the U.S. “thus emphasizes that Russia should be referred to as a country posing a threat to Ukraine, along whose border UN blue helmets should be deployed. But this is far from being so. We are not in a state of war with Ukraine and are not a party to the internal Ukrainian conflict,” he said.
Moreover, this position runs counter to Russia’s approach toward the deployment of peacekeepers in Donbas, he said.
Moscow sees fit to deploy peacekeepers along the disengagement line in Donbas.
