KYIV. April 8 (Interfax) - An international peacekeeping mission in Ukraine can be combined and can include both UN and EU representatives, says Yury Serheyev, Ukraine's permanent representative at the UN.
"This will obviously be a combined mission. A format in which the UN and the European Union may be present is an issue that needs to be coordinated," Serheyev said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda.
The EU can send its peacekeepers to Ukraine without a UN mandate, which makes the matter easier on the one hand, but on the other, a UN mandate provides more political opportunities, Serheyev said. "So, the presence of UN blue helmets is theoretically possible. As for practical implementation, this is a different issue," he said.
The deployment of UN peacekeepers in Ukraine is possible if sanctioned by the Security Council, or this can be ensured through the General Assembly in keeping with Resolution 377 of 1950, Serheyev said. "Neither way is easy. A veto can be used at the Security Council, and the General Assembly involves the issue of collecting two thirds of the votes," he said.
Nevertheless, the diplomat believes the latter option is more likely to secure, as most UN members support Ukraine, Serheyev said. "If these sympathies are substantiated by arguments on the need for a peacekeeping mission, it would be possible to find two thirds [of the votes] or even more," he said.
At the same time, if such a mission is authorized, the financing of its deployment may also be a problem, Serheyev said. "The cost of such a mission is several hundred million dollars. If we talk about a full-fledged mission, like in Africa, this could reach almost one billion. There is not sufficient financing even for the existing missions now, and therefore budget problems will emerge," he said.
Considering all this, Ukraine has explored several ways and has sent appeals to individual countries and organizations to help Ukraine defend itself, he said.
Serheyev referred to the UN Charter, which entitles any country feeling that it lacks its own forces to defend its territorial integrity to appeal to an organization, a group of countries, or an individual country to provide such assistance.
"That is, using our right under Article 51, we are appealing to America, we are appealing to the NATO countries, and we are appealing to Canada to help us in collective self-defense," he said.
Serheyev explained that help in self-defense can be interpreted as "anything depending on what country agrees to what - either help physically by [sending] its soldiers, or help with weapons, or help financially," he said.