Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at UNSC briefing on Ukraine
Mr.President,
We thank Deputy High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Adedeji Ebo for the briefing. Special thanks to American civil society representative Randy Credico who shared with us the questions that many Americans have to the leadership of the country in the context of Ukrainian crisis, and also his impressions after a trip to Donbas and contacts with local residents. I apologize to you for the British representative. I realize that our Western colleagues are not comfortable listening to the impressions of people who have really been to places in Donbas under attack by Ukrainian military. Mr.Credico, you said truly important things, and I thank you for that.
You mentioned that when in Donbas, you nearly got under a shelling. I can illustrate what danger you were exposed to. In my hands I am holding fragments of several projectiles. One of them was collected from the location that was hit from a HIMARS on 16 September 2022. I am speaking of the Kherson Region Administration, where a briefing of Head of Municipalities was taking place at the moment of the attack. Three people were killed and many of those present suffered injuries and concussions. Another fragment is from the site where a French-British Storm Shadow missile (it bears a discernible inscription "made in France") fired on June 22 of this year. It hit a road bridge in the village of Chongar linking the peninsula of the same name to the Republic of Crimea, which makes it a crucial location in terms of delivering food and other vital supplies. Another fragment from HIMARS in my hands was picked up after the shelling of Voroshilovsky and Kuibyshev districts of Donetsk on July 31, 2023, which killed a civilian and wounded 11 others. Finally, the last one is a fragment of US-made munition used in the shelling of Makeyevka on July 4, 2023. As a result, one person was killed and 68 were seriously injured, including three children. Look at these fragments and imagine them being scattered around at a huge speed. Colleagues from the United Kingdom, look here. You want people to keep silent about this. In other words, what I have shown you is physical evidence of how Western-supplied weapons are being actively used by Ukrainians to attack civilian infrastructure.
Colleagues, supplies of Western weapons to the Kiev regime continue. Last week, Kiev once again demonstrated that it deliberately violated IHL by striking at facilities under humanitarian patronage. In the Kherson region, the Ukrainian armed forces used American M142 HIMARS to target the building of an outpatient clinic in the village of Novaya Mayaka and the central district hospital in the village of Alyoshki, where eight ambulances were destroyed. What is it if not a desire to deprive people of access to emergency medical care? Apparently, according to Kiev’s punitive plan, the sick and wounded must bleed to death without any chance of rescue. As we all know, the UAF first began to target hospitals back in 2014. But for all those years, the "civilized Western world" has been hiding behind a handy paradigm, according to which "they had shelled themselves".
The shelling of peaceful neighborhoods in Donetsk has intensified. On October 23, the UAF hit with Grad MLRS the Donetsk mosque, which had been constructed with the participation of the Istanbul Muftiate. On October 21, the neo-Nazis bombarded the Budyonnovsky and Kalininsky districts using shrapnel and cluster shells. Four civilians were wounded, 23 private residential houses were damaged. In fact, a whole M142 HIMARS rocket shell was found in a sleeper neighborhood.
Mr.President,
All of this is a tragic consequence of the massive pumping of NATO-produced lethal weapons to Ukraine, which President Biden qualified as a "reasonable investment" that could bring "dividends for future generations". To secure more returns from this investment, the US authorities (just ten days ago, on October 17) endorsed a secret delivery of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. On the exact same day they were used to strike airfields in Berdyansk and Lugansk.
I should like to draw attention to the fact that ATACMS are long-range missiles with a kill radius of 300 kilometers equipped with cluster units containing blast-fragmentation submunitions, which makes them particularly dangerous for civilians. This did not go unnoticed for Western experts too. For example for Titus Peachey, a member of the US Coalition to Ban Cluster Munitions, who recently published an article at the Responsible Statecraft portal. Washington deliberately sets a course towards escalating the conflict and raising stakes. We have said repeatedly that the Americans and their allies do not need peace in Ukraine. The Kiev regime is only a tool for them to weaken Russia. A few days ago, former German Chancellor G.Schröder said in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung that in March 2022, it was Washington that forbade Kiev from talking peace with Russia. Earlier, former Israeli Prime Minister N.Bennett also confirmed this. He named the United States, Germany and France among those responsible for the breakdown of the negotiation process. According to The National Interest portal, Ukraine has had an opportunity to resolve the conflict on favorable terms three times, but each time Washington blocked the dialogue. Wars have traditionally been a "wise investment" for the United States, as President Biden said. That’s because they were not fought on the American territory and allowed to strengthen the country’s economic might. As for the price that others pay, primarily in terms of humanitarian and human resources, the Americans have never cared about that.
However, there is nothing to be surprised about, if we recall how the United States and its allies gave their Ukrainian protégés a carte blanche to commit any crime at least in 2014. Today we know with certainty that Washington painstakingly implemented the "Anti-Russia" project in Ukraine and, as it turns out, also helped Kiev to engage in criminal activities. It seems that masks are off and that we are talking about direct assistance to Ukrainians in committing terrorist acts in our country, as the Washington Post eloquently reported earlier this week. Mr.Credico already referred to this publication. It cites new details about the murders of journalist Darya Dugina and blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, which were carried out in a clearly terrorist way – with the help of explosive devices. Washington and London were also directly involved in the shelling of the Crimean Bridge, which killed seven people. They also helped Zelensky's regime carry out drone attacks against Russian cities, including attempts to attack the Kremlin. As American journalists demonstrated, Ukrainian intelligence services were able to commit all these acts thanks to close cooperation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) with the United States CIA and Britain's MI6. Moreover, as reported, the GUR itself was essentially a pet project of the United States. Here is how an unnamed US intelligence official, quoted by the Washington Post, admits it, “We calculated that GUR was a smaller and more nimble organization where we could have more impact. GUR was our little baby. We gave them all the new equipment and training”. According to WP, CIA experts trained Ukrainian security services to operate in the rear as part of covert groups. While initially they mostly went on intelligence missions, later it came to the physical annihilation of people. Clearly, American curators did not just give their subordinates a "license to kill", as a famous spy saga puts it, but also taught them a way to use it.
Here it would be appropriate to recall the bravado of K.Budanov, the current Head of GUR who was asked about involvement in terrorist attacks and shared that Ukrainian intelligence “loved direct actions.” “We use them and we love them. <…> We were proud of using them and we are not afraid of using them anywhere in this world against whoever,” that’s what he said.
None of this seems to bother Western sponsors of the Kiev regime. If they are ready, in their anti-Russian frenzy, to turn a blind eye to the fact that their ISIL-inspired underlings commit terrorist acts against civilians, it should come as no surprise that among the infinitely expanding lists of weapons supplied to Ukraine, there is a growing number of long-range guns and missile systems, which the UAF readily use against civilians. I have already shown you material evidence of this today.
Colleagues, we have repeatedly pointed out one more important reason, apart from the desire to exsanguinate Russia, for which the United States and its allies eagerly increase military supplies to Ukraine, and not only to it. This reason is a banal thirst for money. Last week the Pentagon and NATO said that arms manufacturers raised the prices for 155-mm rounds (which Kiev needs the most) from 2,000 to 8,000 euros per piece. The income of American weapon makers has thus increased by 450%, and Kiev has nowhere else to go. Now one shot costs Ukraine as much as 20 Ukrainians earn on average per month, that’s according to official statistics! Well, for most people war is grief and misery, but for Washington it is business as usual.
Against this background, it is little surprise that the White House, according to Politico, is trying to change the arguments used to persuade lawmakers to approve another aid package for Ukraine. The main argument now is that the aid will be the key to economic growth in the United States, creating jobs and strengthening the industrial base. This cannot get any more cynical.
The people who train Ukrainian soldiers to kill (and seem to be rather knowledgeable about it) are also thriving. The man who shot more than 20 people and wounded more than 60 in Lewiston (Maine) the other day, turned out to be a licensed firearms instructor. Local journalists found out his social media, where he wrote: "proud to train defenders of freedom around the world, including in Ukraine." So that’s the kind of people who train Ukrainians. Should we be surprised at the atrocities they commit against civilians after such "training courses"?
At the same time, Western elites, which are so actively expanding their cooperation with the Kiev regime and continue to pump huge money into it, remain dismissive of the colossal level of corruption in Ukraine and the fact that Kiev is unable to control the arsenals at its disposal. Two weeks ago, we already told you how ammunition with markings of a UAF military unit (located in the city of Mukachevo, Transcarpathian region), "had surfaced" near the border with Israel, in which connection the SBU held searches and a series of arrests. Recently there have been reports that 15% to 20% of all military products received by Kiev go to the "gray" and "black" markets within 2 weeks. As soon as Western arms deliveries begin, some of the items appear on the Darknet, which is virtually in the public domain. Mass media has been posting abundant evidence of weapons and explosives being sold on the Internet, for example C4 charges, the price for which starts from $800. Merchants offer full service including delivery across Ukraine. Then intermediaries, including those in Europe, deliver the shipment through Moldova and the Balkans to the main consumers - terrorist and anti-government groups in the Middle East, Central Africa and other regions of the world. Also, there was a wide response to the testimony of a Ukrainian border guard who had defected to Russia. When speaking to Russian journalists, he shared a detailed account how humanitarian aid supplied to Kiev was simply sold off in Ukraine and beyond under the watchful eye and supervision of local officials.
As we remember, at the end of November 2022, at the 16th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, Nigerian President M.Buhari noted that the country's authorities had already discovered in the hands of extremists weapons that has been intended for the UAF.
Colleagues, corruption has gnawed the entire Ukrainian society. Local media write about it openly, publishing more and more stories. Only Kiev's Western sponsors do not notice this, for obvious reasons: corruption is contagious and requires complicity on both sides. Therefore, I will not be surprised if evidence of direct involvement of Western officials and politicians in corrupt schemes with Ukrainian weapons and humanitarian aid comes to light very soon. Actually, such evidence is already in place but it implicates such high political circles in the United States and Great Britain that few people dare to talk about it yet. But that is just for now!
Colleagues, I underscore that Russia has all the necessary tools to fight back and defend its territory against long-range weapons. However, the very fact that the West is supplying such weapons shows once again that the United States and its allies are ready to keep fueling the Kiev regime in its readiness to fight "until the last Ukrainian", which but prolongs its agony.
This being said, we note that against a distinct shortage of ammunition and other weapons at the disposal of the UAF, Western countries are ready to go to lengths to supply their "wards" with extra quantities. They are retracting weapons from all over the world, including other hot spots. They do this openly and often in violation of relevant decisions of the UN Security Council.
We are aware of the fact that a large consignment of ammunition seized by the United States military in the Gulf of Oman has been transferred to Ukraine. The Americans have the audacity to state this openly. Those interested can read a press release of the U.S. Central Command dated October 3. Washington justifies these "legitimate" actions by the need to comply with the international arms embargo against Yemen. In this connection, we draw attention to the fact that, in accordance with Security Council resolution 2216, states may not inspect cargoes bound for Yemen in international waters. In the Yemeni context, there is no such thing as a special inspections regime.
Besides, we are alarmed by reports of the European Parliament's intention to hand over to the Kiev regime 146 armored vehicles that the EU naval operation IRINI confiscated last year. We had serious questions for the EU military regarding the seizures, but let us leave them aside for the time being. What is important is that, if implemented, this measure will directly contradict the UNSC specialized decisions, including resolution 2292, which clearly spells out the authorized ways to dispose of the confiscated weapons. Transfer to a third party is permitted only for destruction purposes and does not imply subsequent use of seized hardware as intended. We believe that these trends deserve careful analysis and discussion at this Council’s platform.
Colleagues,
Summing up, it is quite obvious already that the West’s adventure in Ukraine will go down in history along with the Afghan, Syrian or Vietnamese adventures and will be just as shameful and inglorious. The unenviable fate of Ukraine, whose greedy and reckless rulers betrayed their country and their people and trampled its interests for the sake of Western geopolitical goals, is already obvious. Redemption will come, no matter how our Western colleagues try to delay this moment of reckoning by supplying more arms and intelligence information to Ukraine. There is no doubt that when the Kiev regime collapses, all those who today claim to be selflessly helping Ukraine as an alleged victim of unprovoked aggression – they will not come off unsmirched. After what we have learned about the Kiev regime, its sponsors, and their eight-year-long preparation for a war with Russia, it all sounds false and cynical. I want you to know that, although I doubt that you have or will have any other arguments in stock.
Thank you.
