Sweden would consider participating in a U.N. peacekeeping mission to the Donbas if one were deployed in the war-torn region, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said during his visit to Kyiv on March 5.
“(Such a mission) would have a direct impact on the stability of the Baltic States, on Finland, on the Baltic Sea region, and on Sweden,” Hultqvist said after meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Stepan Poltorak.
“There would be a stability impact on the whole region, and this is very important for us.”
“We support the ambition to create a UN mission, but it must also be in compliance with all international laws and regulations – it must be a fair UN mission,” Hultqvist said. He added that Sweden does not want a frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, and is seeking to secure the region’s stability and peace “in the long run.”
According to Poltorak, Ukraine and Sweden have decided to boost collaboration in defense, upgrading a 2001 defense cooperation protocol into a full-fledged intergovernmental agreement between Kyiv and Stockholm.
Poltorak also said the Swedish military would join Operation UNIFIER – a training program for the Ukrainian army led by Canadian combat instructors that has been run at the Yavoriv firing range in Lviv Oblast since 2014.
Earlier, a number of other nations, including Finland, Portugal, Estonia, and Belarus, said they were in favor of deploying a UN-led international peacekeeping mission to the Donbas, where the Ukrainian army is fighting the Russian-led forces that have occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts since April 2014. At least 10,300 have been killed in the Kremlin-fomented war on Ukraine, according to the U.N.
While meeting Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in Vienna on Feb. 28, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow “did not oppose” a peacekeeping mission in the Donbas, although he added that it must be deployed with the consent of the “unrecognized republics” in Ukraine’s east – which are in reality Kremlin-created and controlled proxies.
However, whilst endorsing a peacekeeping mission in Donbas to possibly end the war, Ukraine strongly opposes participation in it by Russia or its satellite states. Kyiv also demands that peacekeepers be deployed throughout the war zone, including along the uncontrolled section of its border with Russia, through which Russia supplies men, weapons, and ammunition to its proxy forces in Ukraine.
Moscow in turn adamantly opposes securing the Russian-Ukrainian border with UN peacekeeping forces.
Meanwhile, another ceasefire was supposed come into force on the Donbas frontline at midnight on March 5, following an agreement by the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk on Feb. 28.
However, by the morning of March 5, both sides reported fresh violations, with minor clashes at most hotspots on the frontline. As of 8 a.m. on March 5, Ukraine’s military press center in the war zone had recorded two attacks on Ukrainian army lines – with small arms and 82-millimeter mortars. No casualties were reported.
