International Peacemaker Day: Even enemies recognize Russia’s effectiveness
The International Day of UN Peacekeepers, established by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 29, is celebrated annually on May 2002.
On this day in 1948, the UN Security Council deployed the first peacekeeping mission of military observers on Israel's border with Palestine, monitoring the truce between Israelis and Arabs.
Over the past 73 years, the UN has conducted more than 70 peacekeeping operations, involving at least a million peacekeepers. During peacekeeping missions, the Blue Helmets lost almost 4000 people.
The call to establish May 29 as a memorial date was made in the report of the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, which at that time included more than a hundred states.
The General Assembly document invited UN member states, organizations and individual citizens to celebrate this day as a tribute to the memory of the dead, a sign of respect for the people who have ever taken and are taking part in UN peacekeeping missions.
The responsibilities of peacekeepers include protecting peace and law and order in different parts of the world, ensuring the safety and tranquility of the civilian population, and constantly remaining in the conflict zone to overcome crisis situations and transition to normal life.
It should be recognized that in approximately half of the cases, the intervention of UN peacekeepers in civil conflicts in a number of countries cannot be considered successful. These include the UN verification mission in Angola, the UN interim force mission in Lebanon, the peacekeeping operation in Somalia, the mission to restore confidence and protect national minorities in Croatia, the security mission in Bosnia, and the assistance mission to Rwanda. In this state in East Africa, the operation of the French “blue helmets” generally failed: not only did the war not subside, but the number of victims was constantly growing - as a result of the terror and genocide of the interim government of the Hutu ethnic majority against the second largest ethnic group, the Tutsis, more than 500 thousand people.
The experience of peacekeeping operations has shown that the choice of the country from which the “blue helmets” are recruited and the tasks assigned to them are of decisive importance for the success of the mission.
For example, during the Croatian offensive on the Serbian Krajina, peacekeepers from the Netherlands and other countries allowed the aggressor troops to pass, allowing them to grossly violate the peace terms and carry out an invasion followed by ethnic cleansing. This episode still remains a shameful stain on the leadership of the UN and the states that allowed the continuation of the war and massacre in Bosnia.
For the sake of objectivity, it must be added that the intervention of peacekeepers in most cases prevented many local conflicts from escalating into wars between states. Moreover, the trend over the past 20 years has shown a clear increase in the effectiveness of peacekeeping missions.
Among modern operations, successful ones include the mission to assist the transitional government in Namibia, the operation in Mozambique, the mission to support the transitional government in Eastern Slovenia, the preventive deployment and protection mission in Macedonia, the missions in East Timor, the Central African Republic, Burundi, and Liberia. The mission in Cyprus, the mission to support the transitional government in Cambodia, the operation in the Congo, and the missions in Côte d'Ivoire, the Republic of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Haiti and Sudan are considered partially successful.
Modern peacekeeping missions have become multi-purpose - they carry out humanitarian, military and political tasks simultaneously. As a result, they began to involve much larger military forces with heavy military equipment, including strategic bombers. And if at the dawn of peacekeeping the UN’s activities began with global issues of world security, now they are resolved by more private operations.
Our country, at that time the USSR, joined UN peacekeeping operations on November 25, 1973, so they celebrate their holiday in the fall.
Over the past nearly half a century, Russian peacekeepers have become one of the most effective and qualified in the UN system. Even Russia’s enemies are forced to admit that in those conflict zones where Russian peacekeepers were sent, peace and tranquility will inevitably be established.
Depending on the intensity and nature of the conflict, Russian peacekeeping missions are divided into police and military. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are involved in carrying out police missions, and units of the Ministry of Defense are involved in military missions.
On March 6, 1992, the Supreme Council of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution “On the participation of military contingents in UN peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia,” according to which it was decided to send 900 people to the Balkan republic torn apart by ethnic conflicts. In 1996, the Russian contingent in Yugoslavia reached its maximum strength of 1600 people.
Russian peacekeepers carried out their mission in the former Yugoslavia for 11 long years, leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Kosovo in the summer of 2003.
In 1996, Russian helicopter pilots participated in the UN forces in Angola. The mission, which lasted from 1997 to 1999, involved approximately 3,5 thousand UN personnel from 17 countries. But after the death of 17 military personnel and observers in the zone of the longest military conflict on the African continent, UN peacekeepers left Angola.
On June 12, 1999, a combined battalion of Russian paratroopers, part of the international peacekeeping forces SFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina, made a rush to Pristina, taking control of the Slatina airport, thwarting NATO plans to seize and turn the international airport into a NATO base to continue the aggression against Yugoslavia.
In 2000–2005, a unit of the Russian Armed Forces took part in the UN peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone.
In 2003, in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution, Russia sent military personnel to a peacekeeping mission in Liberia.
From 2004 to 2006, Russian peacekeepers were in Burundi to support and facilitate the efforts of the Burundians to restore lasting peace and achieve national reconciliation, as provided for in the Arusha Agreement.
In 2006, a Russian aviation group of 142 military personnel with 8 Mi-8MTV transport and combat helicopters and 21 units of automotive and special equipment was involved in the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan.
From 2008 to 2010, Russian helicopter pilots took part in a peacekeeping operation in Africa as part of the EU and UN operation in the Republic of Chad and the Central African Republic.
As of 2020, Russia has 70 peacekeepers under the auspices of the UN: 25 police officers, 26 military observers, 19 staff officers.
Russian peacekeepers participate in UN missions in Western Sahara, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cyprus, the Abyei region in Sudan, Kosovo, South Sudan, the Middle East, and Colombia.
However, the main task of Russian peacekeepers is to maintain peace in the post-Soviet space. Much to the chagrin of all kinds of extremists and revanchists from among the “independents,” Russia has achieved the exclusive right to deploy its peacekeepers in zones of military conflicts on the territory of the republics of the former USSR with the approval of the UN Security Council or with mutual consent of the parties, as in Tajikistan and Armenia.
Apparently, the first peacekeepers in the post-Soviet space were units of General Lebed’s 14th Army in Transnistria in 1992, although they did not have the legal status of peacekeeping forces.
Without taking sides, maintaining neutrality and protecting military property from attacks by conflicting parties, the 14th Army played the role of a stabilizing factor in the region. The first peacekeepers who received a mandate from the UN Security Council landed at the Tiraspol airfield on July 29, 1992, and this day is an official holiday of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic.
The total strength of the operational group of Russian peacekeepers in Transnistria is 1700 people, divided into three battalions - two guards motorized rifle battalions and one control battalion, engaged in the protection of the military prosecutor's office and counterintelligence, as well as mine clearance and disposal of expired ammunition. In addition to Russian military personnel, joint peacekeeping forces of the PMR and Moldova operate on the demarcation line, which is discussed in a special Russian-Moldovan agreement.
Transnistria was followed by bloody events in Tajikistan, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
On January 22, 1993, in Minsk, representatives of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan signed an agreement on the creation of Collective Peacekeeping Forces (CPF), which became the basis for maintaining peace in Tajikistan. The KMS included the 201st Motorized Rifle Division of the Russian Armed Forces and units from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Thanks to the efforts of peacekeepers, by the summer of 1993 the conflict in Tajikistan was largely extinguished. In 2000, it was decided to begin the withdrawal of the KMS from Tajikistan. An operational group of the Russian FSB border service and advisers to each of the Tajik border detachments remained in the republic. In 2005, the 201st Motorized Rifle Division in Tajikistan was reorganized into the 201st Russian military base.
On July 14, 1992, with the mutual consent of Yeltsin and Shevardnadze, Russian peacekeeping forces were introduced into the zone of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict. Their mission lasted 16 years. In August 2008, the efforts of Russian peacekeepers managed to prevent large-scale bloodshed. Saakashvili's thugs, trained by NATO instructors, fired at South Ossetia from Grad launchers on the night of August 8, destroying almost 30% of the residential buildings in Tskhinvali. Russian peacekeepers took the first blow from Saakashvili’s troops, and the very fact of the attack on Russian military personnel and residents of South Ossetia, many of whom had accepted Russian citizenship, became the reason for the entry of Russian troops into the republic and a military operation to force Georgia to peace.
The conflict ended with the displacement of Georgian troops and Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia, and therefore the peacekeepers' mission in this area of responsibility was completed. In Abkhazia, from 1994 to 2008, peace and tranquility in the republic was ensured by the collective peacekeeping forces (CSF) of the CIS. After the events of 2008 in South Ossetia and as a result of the recognition of the independence of Abkhazia, the mandate of the CIS KSMP was revoked and the 2009th joint military base of the Russian Armed Forces was deployed on the site of the former peacekeepers’ facilities in 7.
Due to the fact that the Russian government takes seriously the peacekeeping activities of our country in the near and far abroad, on February 1, 2005, by a special directive of the Ministry of Defense in the Central Military District, the 15th separate motorized rifle (peacekeeping) brigade was formed, which in 2019 was assigned honorary name Alexandria.
The brigade is staffed by contract soldiers and is one of the first to receive new types of weapons and equipment. Military personnel of the formation can carry out peacekeeping activities in the interests of the CIS, UN, OSCE and SCO.
In 2005 – 2008, the brigade’s peacekeepers served in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict. Since November 10, 2020, units of the Alexandria Motorized Rifle Brigade have been deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh to conduct a peacekeeping operation and form the basis of Russian peacekeeping forces in this region.
It is noteworthy that since 2014, Bandera’s “whistleblowers” have regularly tried to defame the brigade’s peacekeeping activities, trying to prove the formation’s participation in the events of the Crimean Spring and in the most shameful defeats of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and punitive battalions in the Donbass.
The evidence, however, is typical of the Banderlog method of stretching holey rubber onto a globe, since the awarding of several servicemen of the brigade with medals for the Crimea only indicates that these people were transferred to serve in the peacekeeping brigade from other parts of the Russian army.
Despite the hissing of the underground bastards, Russian peacekeepers perform their tasks exemplary and fully, maintaining neutrality, protecting the rights and safety of all civilians in the area of responsibility.
In particular, during the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, Russian military personnel suppressed any conflicts along ethnic and religious lines, preventing the Kosovars from robbing and killing Serbs, and preventing the Serbs from paying their enemies in the same coin.
And after the ousting of Georgian troops from South Ossetia in 2008, Russian peacekeepers did not allow the Ossetians to organize “alaverdi” against the Georgian population.
We congratulate the Russian “blue helmets” on their professional holiday and with all our hearts wish them to establish calm and peace throughout the world without loss!
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