Here's an item sent to us by RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent, Rikard Jozwiak:
Ex-NATO Chief Says Putin's UN Peacekeeper Proposal For Ukraine Needs 'Reshaping'
BRUSSELS -- Former NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen says Russia's proposal to send UN peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine is "a Trojan horse," but it would be worth trying to "reshape" it, since it presented the first opportunity in a long time to resolve the conflict.
Putin last month said that UN peacekeepers might be deployed on the contact line separating the sides of the conflict in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region -- a proposal that has been dismissed by both Kyiv and the West.
"In its current form, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's peacekeeping proposal is what I would call a Trojan horse, it is a non-starter," Rasmussen told a conference organized by the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Brussels on October 11.
Rasmussen added, however, that "we need to seize the moment and try to reshape it to put him [Putin] to the test, because this is our first opening in years to actually end the conflict, so I think it would be a big mistake just to denounce his proposal."
"We should push for a robust mandate that seeks to protect civilians, protect infrastructure, and cover the entire territory of Donbas, not just the contact line. If we followed President Putin's proposal we would just have what I'd call a UN-mandated frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, and that would of course be unacceptable," said Rasmussen, who currently works as a security adviser to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
He also urged that a UN assessment team be sent to Ukraine ahead of any future peacekeeping force -- a move that wouldn't require consent from the UN Security Council, where Russia is a permanent member.