Abstract:

President Putin’s proposal on September 5 [2017] for a UN support mission to protect the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in the South-East of Ukraine drew scepticism among Ukraine’s international partners. Yet the fact that Russia is willing to consider a UN peace-keeping mission in the Donbas could represent a breakthrough after years of protracted conflict. Under the right conditions, such mission could become an effective enforcing mechanism to protect people and infrastructure across the entirety of the occupied territory. It would also create conditions to implement a political solution that restores Ukrainian sovereignty in line with the Minsk Accords.