Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday supported deploying an international force to eastern Ukraine to help protect monitors observing the conflict, but Kiev poured cold water on the plan.
“I consider the presence of peacekeepers — one could call them not peacekeepers, but people who ensure the safety of the OSCE mission — to be completely appropriate,” Putin told a Press conference following a BRICS summit in China.
He insisted that any force should only “assure the security” of the unarmed mission from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
It should be restricted to operating on the “demarcation line” between Ukranian troops and Russian-backed rebels, and only deployed once heavy weaponry has been withdrawn, Putin said.