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Russia declines to support EU peacekeeping mission

November 12, 2014

The UN Security Council has voted to extend the EURFOR military mission in Bosnia. Russia abstained from voting to extend the EU peacekeeping force, saying Brussels' influence should not be imposed on the country.

https://p.dw.com/p/1Dlav
Vladimir Putin
Image: Getty Images/AFP/Kirill Kudravtsev

The UN Security Council voted on Monday to extend the European Union peacekeeping mission in Bosnia for another year. Russia abstained from voting, instead of using its veto power as a permanent member of the Security Council.

It was the first time in 14 years that a member declined to support EURFOR, which has been working in Bosnia since the 1992-1995 civil war and was meant to calm tensions between Bosnia's Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs.

Observers say Russia aims to stem Europe's role in eastern Europe - an issue that has played a role in the war in Ukraine, where a pro-Russian insurgency has battled a Europe-leaning Ukrainian government for months.

'Ukraine atmospherics'

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN, rejected the proposal on Tuesday, saying any movement by Bosnia toward the EU "cannot be forced from the outside."

He agreed that EURFOR had played an important role, but "at the same time, we are against having an international presence in the field of security that could be viewed as an instrument to accelerate the integration for the country into the European Union and NATO."

Valentin Inzko, the UN high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina spoke of the country's need to change the "vicious downward cycle of tit-for-tat politics."

Bosnian Ambassador Mirsada Colakovic told the UN Security Council the country was looking forward to "moving to the next stage of the integration process" with the EU.

French diplomat Philippe Bertoux pointed out on Tuesday that Russia had not previously raised objections to UN support of the EU force and tweeted:

Britain's representative Michael Tatham called Russia's position "cynical and deeply regrettable." He said the implication that movement toward joining the EU was imposed from outside showed contempt for Bosnians.

Ukraine blames Russia for increasing tension

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko blamed Russia for increasing tension in eastern Ukraine in a telephone call to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday.

Poroshenko said Moscow continued to provide separatists in the embattled east of the country with weapons, ammunition and fighters.

He accused the separatists of breaking a ceasefire agreement signed in Minsk at the beginning of September, news agency dpa reported.

Germany rejects calls for new sanctions

Ahead of an EU meeting next week which will focus on the war in Ukraine, Merkel on Tuesday ruled out imposing any new sanctions on Russia.

"Further economic sanctions are not planned at the moment, we are focusing on the winter and the humanitarian situation there and how to get a real ceasefire," the leader of the bloc's most powerful nation said in Berlin.

However, Merkel said that she remained open to extending EU travel bans and asset freezes to both newly-elected separatist officials in eastern Ukraine and the Russian oligarchs who supported them.

Sanctions over Ukraine

Calls to further tighten the screws on Russia have grown since the Kremlin refused to condemn the November 2 separatist elections in Donetsk and Luhansk - ballots which the EU, the US and Kyiv roundly rejected as a clear breach of a September cease-fire.

The EU and the United States imposed economic sanctions on Moscow in March, following Russia's annexation of Crimea. The West has accused Russia of supporting a subsequent separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine that has resulted in the deaths of some 4,000 people.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has intensified over the past week, with some describing the battles between government forces and pro-Russian rebels around Donetsk as the worst since the Minsk ceasefire accord.

Russia has always denied sending troops and weapons across the border to aid the separatists, but this week Kyiv cited a large convoy of unidentified armored trucks seen moving through eastern Ukraine as evidence of Russia's involvement.

sb/lw (AP, AFP)