Belarus is ready to deploy peacekeepers to Ukraine's crisis-torn Donbas region in the east to take control over a segment of the Ukrainian-Russian border if both countries agree to the proposal, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday
MINSK (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2019) Belarus is ready to deploy peacekeepers to Ukraine's crisis-torn Donbas region in the east to take control over a segment of the Ukrainian-Russian border if both countries agree to the proposal, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Thursday.
"If you want us to close this 400-kilometer [248-mile] border between Ukraine and Russia that is not currently controlled by Ukrainian authorities, we will close the border. Although it is a big problem for me to engage in this conflict, we are ready to send peacekeepers, border guards and troops there, as you wish, but we are ready to close this segment of the border if there is an agreement of the two sides," Lukashenko said at a press conference with Ukrainian media.
He also voiced the belief that Ukraine should be "unified and indivisible."
Additionally, Lukashenko said that Belarusian authorities had registered 160,000 refugees in the country from the Donbas region since the start of the conflict.
Since April 2014, the Ukrainian government has been conducting a military operation against the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, which declared their independence after a power change in Kiev that occurred a few months prior. Prospects for peace have been discussed in various forms, including the so-called Normandy format. Nevertheless, fighting in the region continues.
