Poroshenko hopes UN peacekeepers will be deployed in Donbas before year-end

The President said this in an interview with Ukrainian TV channels on Friday, April 13, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"I make every effort so that the [peacekeeping] mission could be deployed in 2018," Poroshenko said.

As the Ukrainian President noted, a year and a half or two ago the world did not want to listen about peacekeepers.

"First, they argued it would be very expensive, about few billion dollars. Second, they said that nobody would go to Ukraine to help establish peace as a key element of the Minsk agreements and restore the Ukrainian sovereignty over the territories seized by Russians. To date, more than four dozen countries have agreed to participate in the peacekeeping operation: starting from Canada and other G7 countries ending with the EU countries that are not members of NATO," Poroshenko said.

The President noted that Ukraine was ready to submit the given issue to the UN Security Council immediately “as soon as Russia accepts the position of the whole world”.

“Many members of the Security Council are willing to support the agreed project. I personally addressed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres with a request to send a special assessment mission to the east of Ukraine to establish the required headcount of the peacekeeping mission, terms for its deployment, preconditions and cost. ” he said.

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