The Golan Heights area was captured by Israel in 1967. However, the United Nations subsequently said that the annexation was illegal and ruled to return the territory to Syria with the UNDOF mission being deployed in a demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries. UN observation posts appeared in the Golan Heights in 1974. After the invasion of the militants during the Syrian civil war in 2013, most of the posts were left by UN peacekeepers.
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In August 2018, after the Quneitra province was freed from terrorists, the UN mission, accompanied by the Russian military police, entered the zone from the Syrian side for the first time in years. In October 2018, Russian military police for the first time carried out a joint patrol with UN peacekeepers in the area.
"We are now in the Golan Heights area on the Bravo line, the eastern Syrian side, where six observation posts have been set up since the end of last year, which monitor the situation in the demilitarized zone, as well as the ceasefire between Syria and Israel. Today we arrived at the first post that has been fully equipped over the past three months," Ivanovsky said.
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"As for today, we have created all the conditions so that UNDOF could set up their posts and start fully perform their tasks on the Bravo line that were performed until 2013," he added.
The military police were created in 2015 within the Russian Armed Forces. They are active in Syria where they help patrol the Idlib buffer zone and the Golan Heights, as well as protect UN aid convoys.
