Ukrainian Leader, US Envoy Discuss Deployment Of UN Peacekeepers In Donbas - Press Service

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday discussed with US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker the coordination of actions in terms of deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas, the Ukrainian president's press service said.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th December, 2018) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday discussed with US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker the coordination of actions in terms of deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas, the Ukrainian president's press service said.

"The parties discussed the latest developments in Donbas. They emphasized the importance of further coordinated actions on the prospects for the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping mission under the UN mandate throughout the occupied Donbas area," the press release read.

The Ukrainian government has been asking for a UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas since 2015. Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the idea, but stressing that the mission should only ensure the safety of monitoring staff from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) along the contact line.

Ukraine, however, wants the peacekeepers to be deployed across the whole of Donbas, up to the Russian border.

The conflict in Donbas started in 2014, when Ukrainian authorities launched a military operation against the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics that refused to recognize the new government in Kiev, which came to power after what they considered to be a coup. In 2015, a ceasefire agreement brokered by the leaders of the Normandy Four group (France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine) was reached in Minsk, but the situation has remained tense.