MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax-AVN) - The OSCE mission performing, inter alia, peacekeeping functions in southeastern regions of Ukraine should be reinforced by citizens of various countries, including CIS members rather than only those of the European Union, says Army Gen. Yury Baluyevsky, a former chief of staff of the Russian armed forces.
"This is brain paralysis! Just remember what they said in Minsk: no peacekeepers, never! Just a week has passed, and all of a sudden peacekeepers are needed," Baluyevsky told Interfax-AVN on Thursday in commenting on the Ukrainian leadership's decision to invite peacekeepers in the format of an EU police mission to Ukraine.
Baluyevsky insisted that the OSCE monitors deployed in southeastern Ukraine are de facto performing peacekeeping missions.
"The OSCE mission, which is already performing peacekeeping functions to control the separation in the conflict zone in southeastern Ukraine, should be reinforced. And this should be done by involving peacekeepers from different countries, rather than only what they see as an EU police mission tasked with controlling the state border," Baluyevsky said.
"The international community will come to understand anyway that a peacekeeping operation should be conducted, be it the enforcement of peace or separation, but this will happen," he said.
"It seems to me that we should establish order on CIS territory on our own," Baluyevsky said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said at the Munich Security Conference on February 7 that "our country doesn't need an international peacekeeping contingent, because it takes too long to make decisions on such issues."
However, Poroshenko said on February 19 that Kyiv favored the possible deployment of an EU police mission on Ukrainian territory based on a UN Security Council mandate.