EU Not to Send Police Mission to Ukraine Due to Lack of Formal Request

Ukraine did not send formal request for deployment of international peacekeepers to the European Union, according to a highly ranked EU official.

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) – Ukraine has not formally requested police or peacekeeping missions from the European Union or the United Nations so Brussels is not planning to send any, a highly ranked EU official said Friday.

"There has not been any formal request, nothing in written form," the EU representative said on the condition of anonymity.

The government in Kiev has been considering whether to ask for the deployment of international peacekeepers along the line of contact in eastern Ukraine and on the Russian-Ukrainian border.

The EU official said that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin visited Brussels earlier and his deputy visited New York and suggested a UN peacekeeping mission be deployed to the country, but nothing was formalized.

"This was simply an informal discussion," the EU representative said.

On February 17, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced he would seek the deployment of a UN-mandated peace mission to Ukraine, prompting criticism from Russia's foreign ministry that said the move was aimed at drawing out the implementation of the new Minsk peace deal. The agreement was adopted on February 12.

Last week, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman also said the organization had noT received any "formal request" from Kiev for peacekeeping force to be deployed in eastern Ukraine.