Ukraine Lays Out Terms for U.N. Mission after Russian Plan

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko laid out Thursday Kiev's terms for sending a U.N.-mandated force to conflict-hit east Ukraine, knocking back key demands in a proposal by Russia's Vladimir Putin. 

Russia asked the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to authorize the deployment of a lightly-armed mission to protect international observers monitoring the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow wants the force to operate only along the frontline between government forces and Russian-backed rebels in east Ukraine, and for the insurgents to agree to the move. 

But Poroshenko -- who has long called for U.N. peacekeepers to be sent to the region -- rebuffed those demands and insisted the mission should patrol the whole conflict zone and secure Russia's porous border with rebel-held territory. 

"Its purpose should not be the preservation of Russia's occupation and legalization of the Russian military presence, but a durable peace," Poroshenko said in an annual address to lawmakers. 

Ukraine's pro-Western leader called Putin's plan "kind of strange," but insisted that Kiev remained willing to have a substantive discussion on any proposal at the U.N.

Vladimir Kononov, the defense minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, stressed that all the decisions on a U.N. mission have to be agreed with the rebel leadership. 

"Otherwise it won't be possible," Kononov told AFP.

Residents of the conflict-torn Donbass region are mostly skeptical of the initiative but are ready to give it a try.

"There is a need for peacekeepers but we do have concerns because the whole of Europe and the world are against us," said Alexander Bondarchuk, a 32-year-old resident of the rebel-held town of Torez in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Russia of being behind the insurgency in a conflict that has killed 10,000 people since 2014.

Despite overwhelming evidence of its involvement, Moscow continues to deny that it has played a role in the fighting. 

Some 600 observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are on the ground in eastern Ukraine but their presence has failed to stop the fighting.

Germany voiced growing skepticism Wednesday about a Russian proposal to let U.N.-mandated forces help protect monitors of the conflict.

While Berlin "in principle welcomes" the proposal, "it remains to be seen whether agreement can be reached on the details," said Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokeswoman, Ulrike Demmer.

A 2015 peace plan brokered by Germany and France has hit a wall as Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of failing to fulfill their obligations.