According to the Kremlin’s representative, the issue of peacekeeper deployment remains on the agenda.

Russia and the United States are still far from consensus on the deployment of a U.N. mission on the Donbass demarcation line, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on December 13, 2017.

“There are certain disagreements in the modalities of the deployment, and so far, we are far from consensus. Nevertheless, this issue remains on the agenda,” the Kremlin’s spokesman said in answering the question as to what the chances of reaching an agreement on this issue were.

Earlier, the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that it was a priority for the United States to end violence in Ukraine. “We work with Russia to find out whether we can come to an agreement on the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission,” the State Department official said.

On September 5, Russia’s representative at the U.N. sent to the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the chairman of the Security Council Corot Bessie the draft resolution on the placement of U.N. peacekeepers at the Donbass demarcation line to ensure the safety of the monitoring OSCE mission.

President Putin emphasized that accommodating the U.N. contingent is possible only after the withdrawal of weapons and with the consent of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. Afterward, Kiev announced that the Donbass mission format that the Russian President offered does not suit Ukraine, which insists on the placement of peacekeeping forces on the Russian-Ukrainian border.