Poroshenko reiterates proposal for deploying peacekeepers in east Ukraine
KYIV. May 14 (Interfax) - President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday reiterated his proposal for deploying an international peacekeeping force in eastern Ukraine, the president's office said.
During a meeting in Aachen, Germany, with Finish President Sauli Niinisto, Poroshenko mentioned Finland's experience of participation in peacekeeping operations and insisted that peacekeepers should be sent to eastern Ukraine.
"Sauli Niinisto invited Petro Poroshenko to visit the Mannerheim Line at any time convenient for him. The president of Ukraine, for his part, invited the president of Finland to visit Ukraine," the Ukrainian president's office said in a statement.
Niinisto promised that the European Union would continue to support Ukraine.
The Mannerheim Line was a defensive fortification line between 132 and 135 kilometers long built on the Finnish part of the Karelian Isthmus in the 1920s and 1930s to fend off a potential strike from the Soviet Union. The line ran from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga.