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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Under Whose Colors will Ukrainian Peacekeepers Enter Kosovo?

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

By Serhiy ZGURETS, The Day
A peacekeeping operation in Kosovo may become kind of a baptism by fire
for the joint Ukrainian-Polish battalion the two countries formed a few
years ago. The inclusion of this unit in the multinational Balkan force
was at first the subject of consultations between Kyiv and the alliance.
Later, Ukraine's Defense Ministry requested the Polish leadership to consider
the matter. The Polish Gazeta wyborcza reported Saturday before
last that Premier Jerzy Buzek had welcomed the initiative and the matter
would be submitted for Polish government's consideration. As to Ukraine,
it is feared Kyiv will not be fast enough to implement the already announced
Ukrainian-Polish initiative.

The Ukrainian-Polish battalion is about 600-strong. Half of the men
are soldiers of the Western Operational Command's Iron Division with headquarters
in Lviv. The rest are their neighbors from a Polish Army brigade stationed
in Peremyszl. The battalion was proclaimed a peacekeeping one from its
very inception and should act only under the UN or OSCE flag. One of the
battalion's Ukrainian companies is already gaining peacekeeping experience
in the Balkans, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, the Polish and Ukrainian
servicemen have never been together outside their countries.

This is why a KFOR operation, a peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, could
become a baptism by fire for this joint entity, as well as for other, purely
Ukrainian, units. Among other things, there are a medical and a railway
company, the latter being able to lay railroad tracks. The total strength
of the Ukrainian contingent in a new peacekeeping operation may thus reaches
about 1300.

It is not ruled out that Kyiv will either never be made part of KFOR
or could be made one at the wrong time. NATO is already deploying 10,000
soldiers at the area of recent hostilities. Moscow shocked the world by
the unforeseen march of its paratroopers who suddenly, contrary to previous
agreements, took control of the strategic airfield at Pristina in the British
zone of responsibility. In the meantime, Ukraine is biding its time. Verkhovna
Rada has not yet been formally requested to grant permission for military
involvement in the Balkans. Sending a contingent outside Ukraine is a parliamentary
prerogative. The parliamentary Security and Defense Committee says it will
not drag its feet should the request be submitted. The Ministry of Defense
points out that such a request to Parliament should be prepared by the
government. And they are also sure it will not take much time to send the
soldiers once the decision is made. At the same time, the Ministry admits
that it is far easier to solve the problem of sending a purely national
unit, rather than the Ukrainian-Polish battalion, for the simple reason
that one must coordinate all the legal subtleties with respect to deploying
a joint military entity. In addition, the Communists, who now make up the
lion's share in Parliament, are dead set against any contacts between the
Ukrainian Army and NATO. So the military must first win its domestic political
battles.

 

 

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