Removing Russia from UN Donbass mission may derail Minsk accords – Russian senator

Pushing Russia out of a UN peacekeeping mission for Donbass may indicate the US is trying to derail the Minsk agreement which guarantees the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Sunday. “If Volker’s statement is reported correctly, this is obviously an attempt to either derail [the] Minsk agreement or force Russia to veto such a resolution by the UN Security Council,” he said, as cited by RIA Novosti. Kosachev was referring to previous reports that US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker told Ukrainian MPs a UN Security Council vote on a Donbass peacekeeping mission may take place by the end of this year. A prospective resolution would not include Russian observers, according to some Ukrainian MPs.