Representative of Ukraine in the Trilateral Contact Group for the settlement of the Donbas crisis and the second president (1994-2005) of independent Ukraine Leonid Kuchma doubts that peacekeeping troops will be introduced in Ukrainian territory.

"It's absolutely unacceptable" the way Russia suggests, he said at a briefing in Dnipro on Friday before handing over scholarships of Kuchma's Ukraina presidential foundation.

"Russia wants to drive this situation into such a corner that we will not know how to get out," he said.

Kuchma expressed hope that if the peacekeeping forces are doomed to be introduced to Ukraine, they should be located throughout the country: "Peacekeeping forces must be stationed throughout the territory of Ukraine."

He did not rule out that peacekeepers can be located on the contact line, "but necessarily on the Ukrainian-Russian border, the border is the holy of holies."

The representative of Ukraine in the TCG also expressed bewilderment at the idea of involving peacekeepers in the protection of the observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM). "What do peacekeeping troops mean for the protection of the OSCE Special Mission? This is just a mockery: peacekeepers must protect peacekeepers. Peacekeeping troops are introduced in order to protect the population and help end the conflict of the conflicting parties," he said.

According to Kuchma, for today 400 km of unprotected border of Ukraine is "purely Russian border."

Kuchma arrived in Dnipro on Friday to award the scholarships of the presidential fund 'Ukraine', an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported. At the enlarged meeting of the Academic Council of Dnipro National University named after Oles Honchar, he handed scholarships to the best students of the Faculty of Physics and Technology. In addition, scholarships were awarded to students of the Alfred Nobel University.