Rada approves peacekeepers for Kosovo (07/25/99)

Rada approves peacekeepers for Kosovo

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's Parliament quickly approved the country's participation in the NATO-led peacekeeping force for Kosovo on July 16, after the government finally completed protracted political and diplomatic preparations on the force's composition and financing.

The Verkhovna Rada's support for the peacekeeping contingent came a day after President Leonid Kuchma submitted a draft bill based upon a presidential decree that had been in development for more than a month.

The national deputies voted 225-22 to send 800 soldiers to Kosovo, with an attachment to the bill that the Ukrainian soldiers will not be exposed to high-risk situations and that "they will not take part in actions constituting a direct threat to their lives, including measures aimed at the demilitarization of armed units that have operated and continue to operate on the territory of Kosovo."

President Kuchma said the same day that the 800 soldiers would leave for Kosovo in two weeks.

The troops have been ready for dispatch since July 1 when Minister of Defense Oleksander Kuzmuk said all he needed was the official approval of the Verkhovna Rada.

The original plan was for the Ukrainian force to number some 1,400 soldiers, but the size of the force was reduced after it became apparent that NATO was not eager to assume the financing of the contingent .

After several discussions with Ukrainian officials, NATO agreed to foot the bill for a reduced Ukrainian force. NATO will absorb the cost of the transport, housing and daily subsistence of the Ukrainian soldiers, while Ukraine will pay the soldiers' salaries, according to a representative of Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The Ukrainian peacekeeping effort will consist of a military hospital, a helicopter company and a bridge brigade. The troops have been assigned to Pristina, the capital of the Kosovo region.

While soldiers will be airlifted into Pristina, Ukrainian naval forces will transport the military hardware via Salonika, Greece, which has become a staging area for many of the Eastern European peacekeeping contingents taking part in the KFOR mission in Kosovo.

President Kuchma said the main Ukrainian contingent will be preceded by an advance team that will enter Kosovo in the upcoming days.

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