When NATO agreed to lead a peacekeeping operation in Bosnia to separate the warring factions after the fighting ended as a result of the General Framework Agreement for Peace that was initialled at Dayton, Ohio on 21 November 1995 and ratified in Paris on 14 December 1995, a number of non-NATO nations volunteered to contribute forces to the new Implementation Force (IFOR), including Russia. But working out NATO command and control arrangements for the Russian contingent proved very difficult, and high-level negotiations by NATO and US diplomats with the Russians failed to come up with a solution acceptable to all parties.

 

The problem was then handed to SACEUR George A. Joulwan, who in a series of personal negotiations with Russian Colonel General Shevtsov worked out the command and control arrangements for the Russian forces under which a Russian general would be named as SACEUR's Deputy for Russian Forces. General Shevtsov was named to become the first Russian deputy to SACEUR, and a Russian delegation joined the IFOR Co-ordination Centre established at SHAPE.

 

Interestingly, this centre was located inside the LIVE OAK Building, which until 1991 had hosted the Allied planning staff responsible for preserving access to Berlin in the event of a Soviet blockade.