Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has just performed a sharp about-face: after months of rejecting the idea, he is now calling for United Nations peacekeepers to separate the sides in eastern Ukraine. A U.N. force really could help secure the country's dysfunctional truce.
It's a shame that Poroshenko's proposal is probably only a diplomatic maneuver meant to provide the U.S. with a further argument for arming the Ukrainian military.
Back in July, when Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was downed over east Ukraine, apparently by pro-Russian rebels, I wrote that sending in a U.N. peacekeeping contingent was a good idea and that if Russian President Vladimir Putin resisted it in the U.N. Security Council, he would reveal himself a party to the conflict, as guilty as those who shot down the plane. But the Ukrainian leadership was dead-set against the idea.