William Taylor, the Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. of the United States in Ukraine, believes that deployment of the international peacekeepers in Donbas makes sense as it could be an intermediate step before the withdrawal of Russians from Donbas.

"Settlement of the situation in Donbas in any case should be based on the fact that Russian forces will leave Donbas and Ukraine will eventually restore its control. Volker and other well-known people worked on achievement of this goal. In their view, the deployment of international forces could be an element of this process. The idea was thought for a while, and I heard that the Foreign Minister of Ukraine recently mentioned this opportunity again. I also believe it makes sense and there is a chance. This could be an intermediate step between the withdrawal of Russians from Donbas and the restoration of Ukraine’s full control over it," the diplomat said this in an interview with the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia Ukrainian media outlet.

He noted that the deployment of peacekeeping mission was meant to be approved by the UN Security Council, and pursuant to such a decision of the Security Council, the countries with appropriate armed forces could send them to Donbas.

"Yes, it would cost money, and countries, including the United States, would need to provide this money in order to gather and send such a contingent to Donbas. There is an ongoing armed conflict in the midst of Europe and the countries should be ready to pay for terminating it," Taylor said.

Good US-Russia and EU-Russia relations are impossible without solving the problem of Donbas and Crimea, the diplomat underscored.

In October, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that the issue of the peacekeeping mission would be discussed during the Normandy format meeting of leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany and Russia in Paris on December 9.

However, the common agreed conclusions of the Paris Summit published by the President's Office mentioned no possible deployment of UN peacekeepers in Donbas.

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