Viewpoint by Jonathan Power*
LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – To its credit the Soviet Union and its successor state, Russia, has long supported UN peacekeeping, a practice that originated in 1960 in the time of UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, who evolved the concept during the great Congolese civil war when it was in danger of becoming a Cold War flashpoint.
But what Russia has never contemplated is UN troops in its own backyard. “Summoning the UN deep into Russia’s historical space is a serious step,” Dmitri Trenin, head of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, told The Economist recently.