Former Ukraine's FM: Expecting peacekeepers to stop Putin and the war is naive

Hoping that foreign peacekeepers or allied military contingents will stop the full-scale war in Ukraine is naive. Until Ukraine becomes strong on its own, no peacekeeping force will help, said former Foreign Minister and current Ambassador-at-Large for Strategic Communications Dmytro Kuleba in an interview with LIGA.net.

He recalled that the topic of peacekeepers in Ukraine is not new. Between 2015 and 2019, the idea of a UN peacekeeping mission was widely discussed on social media, in the media, and official diplomacy.

People keep bringing it up, he believes, because they think someone will come and end the war for them, but that is wishful thinking.

"Let's be honest—some peacekeepers will come, stand there, and everything will stop? We need to finally admit that unless we become strong enough to deter Putin or Russia from attacking us, no peacekeepers will help," Kuleba said.

According to him, people need hope that "something is happening" and "someone is discussing something." However, the current discussion about a peacekeeping presence does not imply that foreign troops would stand between Russian and Ukrainian forces and stop them from fighting.

Kuleba argued that this scenario is even worse than the OSCE mission, which was present in Donbas since 2014 but was unable to determine who was firing.

"And what will those sitting somewhere on the right bank of the Dnipro say? Politically, it looks good—the arrival of foreign troops breaks a psychological barrier, which over time could lead to something bigger. But it does nothing to stop the war," the former foreign minister stated.