Kiev intends to press for the consideration of the possible deployment of a peacekeeping mission in Donbass, Ukraine’s new Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vladimir Yelchenko said on Monday. “We have a definite plan of action, and we know what we will do in the first place. This will be linked one way or another with the situation in Donbass. Namely – in the context of the possible deployment of a peacekeeping mission in the Donbass region (east of Ukraine) ,” he said in an interview with the online publication Apostrophe. Yelchenko also said that the negotiating process on this issue had not begun in the UN yet. “Even if we manage to obtain consent within the framework of the UN Security Council for the consideration of this issue, we are still a long way from it,” said the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN. “The UN practice shows that it usually takes months from the beginning of the negotiations to the actual mission deployment. So this will be a long process. For the beginning we need to at least launch the negotiating process on this issue within the UN framework,” he added. Ukraine got down to work in the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member from January 1, 2016. Less than a month before the New Year, the leadership of Ukraine’s mission to the UN was replaced – Vladimir Yelchenko, who has until recently held the post of Ukraine’s ambassador to the Russian Federation, was appointed as the country’s permanent representative to the UN, instead of Yuri Sergeyev. Ukrainian troops have been engaged in fighting with local militias during Kiev’s punitive operation, underway since mid-April 2014, against the breakaway territories – the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics constituting parts of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. Massive shelling of residential neighborhoods, including with the use of aviation, has killed thousands and led to a humanitarian disaster in the area. Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed as part of the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk Agreements. The Package (Minsk-2) was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass. The Package, earlier agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four (Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine) envisioned an overwhelming cessation of fire and withdrawal of heavy armaments to create a security area in the region at least 50 kilometers wide. In line with the agreement reached at talks in Minsk, from September 1, 2015 there should have been a complete cessation of fire at the disengagement line in Donbass. However, the Defense Ministry of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has registered an increased number of shelling instances over the past few months. At talks in Minsk on December 22, the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass reached a joint decision to establish from 00:00 December 23, 2015 a complete and unconditional ceasefire – the sixth since the conflict start.
